Method for creating polynucleotide and polypeptide sequences
The invention provides methods for evolving a polynucleotide toward acquisition of a desired property. Such methods entail incubating a population of parental polynucleotide variants under conditions to generate annealed polynucleotides comprising heteroduplexes. The heteroduplexes are then exposed to a cellular DNA repair system to convert the heteroduplexes to parental polynucleotide variants or recombined polynucleotide variants. The resulting polynucleotides are then screened or selected for the desired property.
Latest California Institute of Technology Patents:
- OPTICAL PARAMETRIC OSCILLATOR-BASED MOLECULAR SENSOR
- CROSS-RAY ULTRASOUND TOMOGRAPHY (CRUST) METHODS AND SYSTEMS
- Freeze-cast ceramic membrane for size based filtration
- DNA sequence modification-based gene drive
- Systems and methods for detecting abnormalities in electrical and electrochemical energy units
This application derives priority from U.S. Ser. No. 60/067,908, filed Dec. 8, 1997, which is incorporated by reference in its entirety for all purposes.
TECHNICAL FIELDThe invention resides in the technical field of genetics, and more specifically, forced molecular evolution of polynucleotides to acquire desired properties.
BACKGROUNDA variety of approaches, including rational design and directed evolution, have been used to optimize protein functions (1, 2). The choice of approach for a given optimization problem depends, in part, on the degree of understanding of the relationships between sequence, structure and function. Rational redesign typically requires extensive knowledge of a structure-function relationship. Directed evolution requires little or no specific knowledge about structure-function relationship; rather, the essential features is a means to evaluate the function to be optimized. Directed evolution involves the generation of libraries of mutant molecules followed by selection or screening for the desired function. Gene products which show improvement with respect to the desired property or set of properties are identified by selection or screening. The gene(s) encoding those products can be subjected to further cycles of the process in order to accumulate beneficial mutations. This evolution can involve few or many generations, depending on how far one wishes to progress and the effects of mutations typically observed in each generation. Such approaches have been used to create novel functional nucleic acids (3, 4), peptides and other small molecules (3), antibodies (3), as well as enzymes and other proteins (5, 6, 7). These procedures are fairly tolerant to inaccuracies and noise in the function evaluation (7).
Several publications have discussed the role of gene recombination in directed evolution (see WO 97/07205, WO 98/42727, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,807,723, 5,721,367, 5,776,744 and WO 98/41645 U.S. Pat. No. 5,811,238, WO 98/41622, WO 98/41623, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,093,257).
A PCR-based group of recombination methods consists of DNA shuffling [5, 6], staggered extension process [9, 90] and random-priming recombination [87]. Such methods typically involve synthesis of significant amounts of DNA during assembly/recombination step and subsequent amplification of the final products and the efficiency of amplification decreases with gene size increase.
Yeast cells, which possess an-active system for homologous recombination, have been used for in vivo recombination. Cells transformed with a vector and partially overlapping inserts efficiently join the inserts together in the regions of homology and restore a functional, covalently-closed plasmid [91]. This method does not require PCR amplification at any stage of recombination and therefore is free from the size considerations inherent in this method. However, the number of crossovers introduced in one recombination event is limited by the efficiency of transformation of one cell with multiple inserts. Other in vivo recombination methods entail recombination between two parental genes cloned on the same plasmid in a tandem orientation. One method relies on homologous recombination machinery of bacterial cells to produce chimeric genes [92]. A first gene in the tandem provides the N-terminal part of the target protein, and a second provides the C-terminal part. However, only one crossover can be generated by this approach. Another in vivo recombination method uses the same tandem organization of substrates in a vector [93]. Before transformation into E. coli cells, plasmids are linearized by endonuclease digestion between the parental sequences. Recombination is performed in vivo by the enzymes responsible for double-strand break repair. The ends of linear molecules are degraded by a 5′→3′ exonuclease activity, followed by annealing of complementary single-strand 3′ ends and restoration of the double-strand plasmid [94]. This method has similar advantages and disadvantages of tandem recombination on circular plasmid.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONThe invention provides methods for evolving a polynucleotide toward acquisition of a desired property. Such methods entail incubating a population of parental polynucleotide variants under conditions to generate annealed polynucleotides comprises heteroduplexes. The heteroduplexes are then exposed to a cellular DNA repair system to convert the heteroduplexes to parental polynucleotide variants or recombined polynucleotide variants. The resulting polynucleotides are then screened or selected for the desired property.
In some methods, the heteroduplexes are exposed to a DNA repair system in vitro. A suitable repair system can be prepared in the form of cellular extracts.
In other methods, the products of annealing including heteroduplexes are introduced into host cells. The heteroduplexes are thus exposed to the host cells' DNA repair system in vivo.
In several methods, the introduction of annealed products into host cells selects for heteroduplexes relative to transformed cells comprising homoduplexes. Such can be achieved, for example, by providing a first polynucleotide variant as a component of a first vector, and a second polynucleotide variant is provided as a component of a second vector. The first and second vectors are converted to linearized forms in which the first and second polynucleotide variants occur at opposite ends. In the incubating step, single-stranded forms of the first linearized vector reanneal with each other to form linear first vector, single-stranded forms of the second linearized vector reanneal with each other to form linear second vector, and single-stranded linearized forms of the first and second vectors anneal with each to form a circular heteroduplex bearing a nick in each strand. Introduction of the products into cells thus selects for circular heteroduplexes relative to the linear first and second vector. Optionally, in the above methods, the first and second vectors can be converted to linearized forms by PCR. Alternatively, the first and second vectors can be converted to linearized forms by digestion with first and second restriction enzymes.
In some methods, polynucleotide variants are provided in double stranded form and are converted to single stranded form before the annealing step. Optionally, such conversion is by conducting asymmetric amplification of the first and second double stranded polynucleotide variants to amplify a first strand of the first polynucleotide variant, and a second strand of the second polynucleotide variant. The first and second strands anneal in the incubating step to form a heteroduplex.
In some methods, a population of polynucleotides comprising first and second polynucleotides is provided in double stranded form, and the method further comprises incorporating the first and second polynucleotides as components of first and second vectors, whereby the first and second polynucleotides occupy opposite ends of the first and second vectors. In the incubating step single-stranded forms of the first linearized vector reanneal with each other to form linear first vector, single-stranded forms of the second linearized vector reanneal with each other to form linear second vector, and single-stranded linearized forms of the first and second vectors anneal with each to form a circular heteroduplex bearing a nick in each strand. In the introducing step selects for transformed cells comprises the circular heteroduplexes relative to the linear first and second vector.
In some methods, the first and second polynucleotides are obtained from chromosomal DNA. In some methods, the polynucleotide variants encode variants of a polypeptide. In some methods, the population of polynucleotide variants comprises at least 20 variants. In some methods, the population of polynucleotide variants are at least 10 kb in length.
In some methods, the polynucleotide variants comprises natural variants. In other methods, the polynucleotide variants comprise variants generated by mutagenic PCR or cassette mutagenesis. In some methods, the host cells into which heteroduplexes are introduced are bacterial cells. In some methods, the population of variant polynucleotide variants comprises at least 5 polynucleotides having at least 90% sequence identity with one another.
Some methods further comprise a step of at least partially demethylating variant polynucleotides. Demethylation can be achieved by PCR amplification or by passaging variants through methylation-deficient host cells.
Some methods include a further step of sealing one or more nicks in heteroduplex molecules before exposing the heteroduplexes to a DNA repair system. Nicks can be sealed by treatment with DNA ligase.
Some methods further comprise a step of isolating a screened recombinant polynucleotide ariant. In some methods, the polynucleotide variant is screened to produce a recombinant protein or a secondary metabolite whose production is catalyzed thereby.
In some methods, the recombinant protein or secondary metabolite is formulated with a carrier to form a pharmaceutical composition.
In some methods, the polynucleotide variants encode enzymes selected from the group consisting of proteases, lipases, amylases, cutinases, cellulases, amylases, oxidases, peroxidases and phytases. In other methods, the polynucleotide variants encode a polypeptide selected from the group consisting of insulin, ACTH, glucagon, somatostatin, somatotropin, thymosin, parathyroid hormone, pigmentary hormones, somatomedin, erthropoietin, luteinizing hormone, chorionic gonadotropin, hyperthalmic releasing factors, antidiuretic hormones, thyroid stimulating hormone, relaxin, interferon, thrombopoietic (TPO), and prolactin.
In some methods, each polynucleotide in the population of variant polynucleotides encodes a plurality of enzymes forming a metabolic pathway.
Screening is, in general, a two-step process in which one first physically separates the cells and then determines which cells do and do not possess a desired property. Selection is a form of screening in which identification and physical separation are achieved simultaneously by expression of a selection marker, which, in some genetic circumstances, allows cells expressing the marker to survive while other cells die (or vice versa). Exemplary screening members include luciferase, βgalactosidase and green fluorescent protein. Selection markers include drug and toxin resistance genes. Although spontaneous selection can and does occur in the course of natural evolution, in the present methods selection is performed by man.
An exogenous DNA segment is one foreign (or heterologous) to the cell or homologous to the cell but in a position within the host cell nucleic acid in which the element is not ordinarily found. Exogenous DNA segments are expressed to yield exogenous polypeptides.
The term gene is used broadly to refer to any segment of DNA associated with a biological function. Thus, genes include coding sequences and/or the regulatory sequences required for their expression. Genes also include nonexpressed DNA segments that, for example, form recognition sequences for other proteins.
The term “wild-type” means that the nucleic acid fragment does not comprise any mutations. A “wild-type” protein means that the protein will be active at a level of activity found in nature and typically will comprise the amino acid sequence found in nature. In an aspect, the term “wild type” or “parental sequence” can indicate a starting or reference sequence prior to a manipulation of the invention.
“Substantially pure” means an object species is the predominant species present (i.e., on a molar basis it is more abundant than any other individual macromolecular species in the composition), and preferably a substantially purified fraction is a composition wherein the object species comprises at least about 50 percent (on a molar basis) of all macromolecular species present. Generally, a substantially pure composition will comprise more than about 80 to 90 percent of all macromolecular species present in the composition. Most preferably, the object species is purified to essential homogeneity (contaminant species cannot be detected in the composition by conventional detection methods) wherein the composition consists essentially of a single macromolecular species. Solvent species, small molecules (<500 Daltons), and elemental ion species are not considered macromolecular species.
Percentage sequence identity is calculated by comparing two optimally aligned sequences over the window of comparison, determining the number of positions at which the identical nucleic acid base occurs in both sequences to yield the number of matched positions, dividing the number of matched positions by the total number of positions in the window of comparison. Optimal alignment of sequences for aligning a comparison window can be conducted by computerized implementations of algorithms GAP, BESTFIT, FASTA, and TFASTA in the Wisconsin Genetics Software Package Release 7.0, Genetics Computer Group, 575 Science Dr., Madison, Wis.
The term naturally-occurring is used to describe an object that can be found in nature as distinct from being artificially produced by man. For example, a polypeptide or polynucleotide sequence that is present in an organism (including viruses) that can be isolated from a source in nature and which has not been intentionally modified by man in the laboratory is naturally-occurring. Generally, the term naturally-occurring refers to an object as present in a non-pathological (undiseased) individual, such as would be typical for the species.
A nucleic acid is operably linked when it is placed into a functional relationship with another nucleic acid sequence. For instance, a promoter or enhancer is operably linked to a coding sequence if it increases the transcription of the coding sequence. Operably linked means that the DNA sequences being linked are typically contiguous and, where necessary to join two protein coding regions, contiguous and in reading frame. However, since enhancers generally function when separated from the promoter by several kilobases and intronic sequences may be of variable lengths, some polynucleotide elements may be operably linked but not contiguous.
A specific binding affinity between, for example, a ligand and a receptor, means a binding affinity of at least 1×106 M−1.
The term “cognate” as used herein refers to a gene sequence that is evolutionarily and functionally related between species. For example but not limitation, in the human genome, the human CD4 gene is the cognate gene to the mouse CD4 gene, since the sequences and structures of these two genes indicate that they are highly homologous and both genes encode a protein which functions in signaling T cell activation through MHC class II-restricted antigen recognition.
The term “heteroduplex” refers to hybrid DNA generated by base pairing between complementary single strands derived from the different parental duplex molecules, whereas the term “homoduplex” refers to double-stranded DNA generated by base pairing between complementary single strands derived from the same parental duplex molecules.
The term “nick” in duplex DNA refers to the absence of a phosphodiester bond between two adjacent nucleotides on one strand. The term “gap” in duplex DNA refers to an absence of one or more nucleotides in one strand of the duplex. The term “loop” in duplex DNA refers to one or more unpaired nucleotides in one strand.
A mutant or variant sequence is a sequence showing substantial variation from a wild type or reference sequence that differs from the wild type or reference sequence at one or more positions.
DETAILED DESCRIPTIONI. General
The invention provides methods of evolving a polynucleotide toward acquisition of a desired property. The substrates for the method are a population of at least two polynucleotide variant sequences that contain regions of similarity with each other but, which also have point(s) or regions of divergence. The substrates are annealed in vitro at the regions of similarity. Annealing can regenerate initial substrates or can form heteroduplexes, in which component strands originate from different parents. The products of annealing are exposed to enzymes of a DNA repair, and optionally a replication system, that repairs unmatched pairings. Exposure can be in vivo as when annealed products are transformed into host cells and exposed to the hosts DNA repair system. Alternatively, exposure can be in vitro, as when annealed products are exposed to cellular extracts containing functional DNA repair systems. Exposure of heteroduplexes to a DNA repair system results in DNA repair at bulges in the heteroduplexes due to DNA mismatching. The repair process differs from homologous recombination in promoting nonreciprocal exchange of diversity between strands. The DNA repair process is typically effected on both component strands of a heteroduplex molecule and at any particular mismatch is typically random as to which strand is repaired. The resulting population can thus contain recombinant polynucleotides encompassing an essentially random reassortment of points of divergence between parental strands. The population of recombinant polynucleotides is then screened for acquisition of a desired property. The property can be a property of the polynucleotide per se, such as capacity of a DNA molecule to bind to a protein or can be a property of an expression product thereof, such as mRNA or a protein.
II. Substrates For Shuffling
The substrates for shuffling are variants of a reference polynucleotide that show some region(s) of similarity with the reference and other region(s) or point(s) of divergence. Regions of similarity should be sufficient to support annealing of polynucleotides such that stable heteroduplexes can be formed. Variants forms often show substantial sequence identity with each other (e.g., at least 50%, 75%, 90% or 99%). There should be at least sufficient diversity between substrates that recombination can generate more diverse products than there are starting materials. Thus, there must be at least two substrates differing in at least two positions. The degree of diversity depends on the length of the substrate being recombined and the extent of the functional change to be evolved. Diversity at between 0.1–25% of positions is typical. Recombination of mutations from very closely related genes or even whole sections of sequences from more distantly related genes or sets of genes can enhance the rate of evolution and the acquisition of desirable new properties. Recombination to create chimeric or mosaic genes can be useful in order to combine desirable features of two or more parents into a single gene or set of genes, or to create novel functional features not found in the parents. The number of different substrates to be combined can vary widely in size from two to 10, 100, 1000, to more than 105, 107, or 109 members.
The initial small population of the specific nucleic acid sequences having mutations may be created by a number of different methods. Mutations may be created by error-prone PCR. Error-prone PCR uses low-fidelity polymerization conditions to introduce a low level of point mutations randomly over a long sequence. Alternatively, mutations can be introduced into the template polynucleotide by oligonucleotide-directed mutagenesis. In oligonucleotide-directed mutagenesis, a short sequence of the polynucleotide is removed from the polynucleotide using restriction enzyme digestion and is replaced with a synthetic polynucleotide in which various bases have been altered from the original sequence. The polynucleotide sequence can also be altered by chemical mutagenesis. Chemical mutagens include, for example, sodium bisulfite, nitrous acid, hydroxylamine, hydrazine or formic acid. Other agents which are analogues of nucleotide precursors include nitrosoguanidine, 5-bromouracil, 2-aminopurine, or acridine. Generally, these agents are added to the PCR reaction in place of the nucleotide precursor thereby mutating the sequence. Intercalating agents such as proflavine, acriflavine, quinacrine and the like can also be used. Random mutagenesis of the polynucleotide sequence can also be achieved by irradiation with X-rays or ultraviolet light. Generally, plasmid DNA or DNA fragments so mutagenized are introduced into E. coli and propagated as a pool or library of mutant plasmids.
Alternatively the small mixed population of specific nucleic acids can be found in nature in the form of different alleles of the same gene or the same gene from different related species (i.e., cognate genes). Alternatively, substrates can be related but nonallelic genes, such as the immunoglobulin genes. Diversity can also be the result of previous recombination or shuffling. Diversity can also result from resynthesizing genes encoding natural proteins with alternative codon usage.
The starting substrates encode variant forms of sequences to be evolved. In some methods, the substrates encode variant forms of a protein for which evolution of a new or modified property is desired. In other methods, the substrates can encode variant forms of a plurality of genes constituting a multigene pathway. In such methods, variation can occur in one or any number of the component genes. In other methods, substrates can contain variants segments to be evolved as DNA or RNA binding sequences. In methods, in which starting substrates containing coding sequences, any essential regulatory sequences, such as a promoter and polyadenylation sequence, required for expression may also be present as a component of the substrate. Alternatively, such regulatory sequences can be provided as components of vectors used for cloning the substrates.
The starting substrates can vary in length from about 50, 250, 1000, 10,000, 100,000, 106 or more bases. The starting substrates can be provided in double- or single-stranded form. The starting substrates can be DNA or RNA and analogs thereof. If DNA, the starting substrates can be genomic or cDNA. If the substrates are RNA, the substrates are typically reverse-transcribed to cDNA before heteroduplex formation. Substrates can be provided as cloned fragments, chemically synthesized fragments or PCR amplification products. Substrates can derive from chromosomal, plasmid or viral sources. In some methods, substrates are provided in concatemeric form.
III. Procedures for Generating Heteroduplexes
Heteroduplexes are generated from double stranded DNA substrates, by denaturing the DNA substrates and incubating under annealing conditions. Hybridization conditions for heteroduplex formation are sequence-dependent and are different in different circumstances. Longer sequences hybridize specifically at higher temperatures. Generally, hybridization conditions are selected to be about 25° C. lower than the thermal melting point (Tm) for the specific sequence at a defined ionic strength and pH. The Tm is the temperature (under defined ionic strength, pH, and nucleic acid concentration) at which 50% of the probes complementary to the target sequence hybridize to the target sequence at equilibrium.
Exemplary conditions for denaturation and renaturation of double stranded substrates are as follows. Equimolar concentrations (˜1.0–5.0 nM) of the substrates are mixed in 1× SSPE buffer (180 mM NaCl, 1.0 mM EDTA, 10 mM NaH2PO4, pH 7.4) After heating at 96° C. for 10 minutes, the reaction mixture is immediately cooled at 0° C. for 5 minutes; The mixture is then incubated at 68° C. for 2–6 hr. Denaturation and reannealing can also be carried out by the addition and removal of a denaturant such as NaOH. The process is the same for single stranded DNA substrates, except that the denaturing step may be omitted for short sequences.
By appropriate design of substrates for heteroduplex formation, it is possible to achieve selection for heteroduplexes relative to reformed parental homoduplexes. Homoduplexes merely reconstruct parental substrates and effectively dilute recombinant products in subsequent screening steps. In general, selection is achieved by designing substrates such that heteroduplexes are formed in open-circles, whereas homoduplexes are formed as linear molecules. A subsequent transformation step results in substantial enrichment (e.g., 100-fold) for the circular heteroduplexes.
It is not essential in the above scheme that amplification is initiated at the interface between substrate and the rest of the vector. Rather, amplification can be initiated at any points on two vectors bearing substrates provided that the amplification is initiated at different points between the vectors. In the general case, such amplification generates two linearized vectors in which the first and second substrates respectively occupy different positions relative to the remainder of the vector. Denaturation and reannealing generator heteroduplexes similar to that shown in
Although
An alternative scheme for heteroduplex formation is shown in
In a further variation, heteroduplexes can be formed from substrates molecules in vector-free form, and the heteroduplexes subsequently cloned into vectors. Such can be achieved by asymmetric amplification of first and second substrates as shown in
IV. Vectors and Transformation
In general, substrates are incorporated into vectors either before or after the heteroduplex formation step. A variety of cloning vectors typically used in genetic engineering are suitable.
The vectors containing the DNA segments of interest can be transferred into the host cell by standard methods, depending on the type of cellular host. For example, calcium chloride transformation is commonly utilized for prokaryotic cells, whereas calcium phosphate treatment. Lipofection, or electroporation may be used for other cellular hosts. Other methods used to transform mammalian cells include the use of Polybrene, protoplast fusion, liposomes, electroporation, and microinjection, and biolisitics (see, generally, Sambrook et al., supra). Viral vectors can also be packaged in vitro and introduced by infection. The choice of vector depends on the host cells. In general, a suitable vector has an origin of replication recognized in the desired host cell, a selection maker capable of being expressed in the intended host cells and/or regulatory sequences to support expression of genes within substrates being shuffled.
V. Types of Host Cells
In general any type of cells supporting DNA repair and replication of heteroduplexes introduced into the cells can be used. Cells of particular interest are the standard cell types commonly used in genetic engineering, such as bacteria, particularly, E. coli (16, 17). Suitable E. coli strains include E. coli mutS, mutL, dam−, and/or recA+, E. coli XL-10-Gold ([TetrΔ(mcrA)183 Δ(mcrCB-hsdSMR-mrr)173 endA1 supE44 thi-1 recA1 gyrA96 relA1 lac Hte] [F′ proAB laclqZΔM15 Tn10 (Tetr) Amy Camr]), E. coli ES1301 mutS [Genotype: lacZ53, mutS201::Tn5, thyA36, rha-5, metB1, deoC, IN(rrnD-rrnE)] (20, 24, 28–42). Preferred E. coli strains are E. coli SCS110 [Genotype: rpsl, (Strr), thr, leu, enda, thi-1, lacy, galk galt, ara tona, tsx, dam, dcm, supE44, Δ(lac-proAB), [F, traD36, proA+B+IaclqZΔM15], which have normal cellular mismatch repair systems (17). This strain type repairs mismatches and unmatches in the heteroduplex with little strand-specific preference. Further, because this strain is dam− and dcm−, plasmid isolated from the strain is unmethylated and therefore particularly amenable for further rounds of DNA duplex formation/mismatch repair (see below). Other suitable bacterial cells include gram-negative and gram-positive, such as Bacillus, Pseudomonas, and Salmonella.
Eukaryotic organisms are also able to carry out mismatch repair (43–48). Mismatch repair systems in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes are thought to play an important role in the maintenance of genetic fidelity during DNA replication, Some of the genes that play important roles in mismatch repair in prokaryotes, particularly mutS and mutL, have homologs in eukaryotes in the outcome of genetic recombinations, and in genome stability. Wild-type or mutant S. cerevisiae has been shown to carry out mismatch repair of heteroduplexes (49–56), as have COS-1 monkey cells (57). Preferred strains of yeast are Picchia and Saccharomyces. Mammalian cells have been shown to have the capacity to repair G-T to G-C base pairs by a short-patch mechanism (38, 58–63). Mammalian cells (e.g., mouse, hamster, primate, human), both cell lines and primary cultures can also be used. Such cells include stem cells, including embryonic stem cells, zygotes, fibroblasts, lymphocytes, Chinese hamster ovary (CHO), mouse fibroblasts (NIH3T3), kidney, liver, muscle, and skin cells. Other eucaryotic cells of interest include plant cells, such as maize, rice, wheat, cotton, soybean, sugarcane, tobacco, and arabidopsis; fish, algae, fungi (aspergillus, podospora, neurospora), insect (e.g., baculo lepidoptera) (see, Winnacker, “From Genes to Clones,” VCH Publishers, N.Y., (1987), which is incorporated herein by reference).
In vivo repair occurs in a wide variety of prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. Use of mammalian cells is advantage in certain application in which substrates encode polypeptides that are expressed only in mammalian cells or which are intended for use in mammalian cells. However, bacterial and yeast cells are advantageous for screening large libraries due to the higher transformation frequencies attainable in these strains.
V. In Vitro DNA Repair Systems
As an alternative to introducing annealed products into host cells, annealed products can be exposed a DNA repair system in vitro. The DNA repair system can be obtained as extracts from repair-competent E. coli, yeast or any other cells (64–67). Repair-competent cells are lysed in appropriate buffer and supplemented with nucleotides. DNA is incubated in this cell extract and transformed into competent cells for replication.
VI. Screening and Selection
After introduction of annealed products into host cells, the host cells are typically cultured to allow repair and replication to occur and optionally, for genes encoded by polynucleotides to be expressed. The recombinant polynucleotides can be subject to further rounds of recombination using the heteroduplex procedures described above, or other shuffling methods described below. However, whether after one cycle of recombination or several, recombinant polynucleotides are subjected to screening or selection for a desired property. In some instances, screening or selection in performed in the same host cells that are used for DNA repair. In other instances, recombinant polynucleotides, their expression products or secondary metabolites produced by the expression products are isolated from such cells and screened in vitro. In other instances, recombinant polynucleotides are isolated from the host cells in which recombination occurs and are screened or selected in other host cells. For example, in some methods, it is advantageous to allow DNA repair to occur in a bacterial host strain, but to screen an expression product of recombinant polynucleotides in eucaryotic cells. The recombinant polynucleotides surviving screening or selection are sometimes useful products in themselves. In other instances, such recombinant polynucleotides are subjected to further recombination with each other or other substrates. Such recombination can be effected by the heteroduplex methods described above or any other shuffling methods. Further round(s) of recombination are followed by further rounds of screening or selection on an iterative basis. Optionally, the stringency of selection can be increased at each round.
The nature of screening or selection depends on the desired property sought to be acquired. Desirable properties of enzymes include high catalytic activity, capacity to confer resistance to drugs, high stability, the ability to accept a wider (or narrower) range of substrates, or the ability to function in nonnatural environments such as organic solvents. Other desirable properties of proteins include capacity to bind a selected target, secretion capacity, capacity to generate an immune response to a given target, lack of immunogenicity and toxicity to pathogenic microorganisms. Desirable properties of DNA or RNA polynucleotides sequences include capacity to specifically bind a given protein target, and capacity to regulate expression of operably linked coding sequences. Some of the above properties, such as drug resistance, can be selected by plating cells on the drug. Other properties, such as the influence of a regulatory sequence on expression, can be screened by detecting appearance of the expression product of a reporter gene linked to the regulatory sequence. Other properties, such as capacity of an expressed protein to be secreted, can be screened by FACS™, using a labelled antibody to the protein. Other properties, such as immunogenicity or lack thereof, can be screened by isolating protein from individual cells or pools of cells, and analyzing the protein in vitro or in a laboratory animal.
VII. Variations
1. Demethylation
Most cell types methylate DNA in some manner, with the pattern of methylation differing between cells types. Sites of methylation include 5-methylcytosine (m5C), N4-methylcytosine (m4C) and N6-methyladenine (m6A), 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (hm5C) and 5-hydroxymethyluracil (hm5U). In E. coli, methylation is effected by Dam and Dcm enzymes. The methylase specified by the dam gene methylates the N6-position of the adenine residue in the sequence GATC, and the methylase specified by the dcm gene methylates the C5-position of the internal cytosine residue in the sequence CCWGG. DNA from plants and mammal is often subject to CG methylation meaning that CG or CNG sequences are methylated. Possible effects of methylated on cellular repair are discussed by references 18–20.
In some methods, DNA substrates for heteroduplex formation are at least partially demethylated on one or both strands, preferably the latter. Demethylation of substrate DNA promotes efficient and random repair of the heteroduplexes. In heteroduplexes formed with one strand dam-methylated and one strand unmethylated, repair is biased to the unmethylated strand, with the methylated strand serving as the template for correction. If neither strand is methylated, mismatch repair occurrs, but showes insignificant strand preference (23, 24).
Demethylation can be performed in a variety of ways. In some methods, substrate DNA is demethylated by PCR-amplification. In some instances, DNA demethylation is accomplished in one of the PCR steps in the heteroduplex formation procedures described above. In other methods, an additional PCR step is performed to effect demethylation. In other methods, demethylation is effected by passaging substrate DNA through methylation deficient host cells (e.g. an E. coli dam−dcm− strain). In other methods, substrate DNA is demethylated in vitro using a demethylating enzymes. Demethylated DNA is used for heteroduplex formation using the same procedures described above. Heteroduplexes are subsequently introduced into DNA-repair-proficient but restriction-enzyme-defective cells to prevent degradation of the unmethylated heteroduplexes.
2. Sealing Nicks
Several of the methods for heteroduplex formation described above result in circular heteroduplexes bearing nicks in each strand. These nicks can be sealed before introducing heteroduplexes into host cells. Sealing can be effected by treatment with DNA ligase under standard ligating conditions. Ligation forms a phosphodiester bond to link two adjacent bases separated by a nick in one strand of double helix of DNA. Sealing of nicks increases the frequency of recombination after introduction of heteroduplexes into host cells.
3. Error Prone PCR Attendant To Amplification
Several of the formats described above include a PCR amplification step. Optionally, such a step can be performed under mutagenic conditions to induce additional diversity between substrates.
VIII. Other Shuffling Methods
The methods of heteroduplex formation described above can be used in conjunction with other shuffling methods. For example, one can perform one cycle of heteroduplex shuffling, screening or selection, followed by a cycle of shuffling by another method, followed by a further cycle of screening or selection. Other shuffling formats are described by WO 95/22625; U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,605,793; 5,811,238; WO 96/19256; Stemmer, Science 270, 1510 (1995); Stemmer et al., Gene, 164, 49–53 (1995); Stemmer, Bio/Technology, 13, 549–553 (1995); Stemmer, Proc. Natl. Acad Sci. USA 91, 10747–10751 (1994); Stemmer, Nature 370, 389–391 (1994); Crameri et al., Nature Medicine, 2(1):1–3, (1996); Crameri et al., Nature Biotechnology 14, 315–319 (1996); WO 98/42727; WO 98/41622; WO 98/05764 and WO 98/42728, WO 98/27230 (each of which is incorporated by reference in its entirety for all purposes).
IX. Protein Analogs
Proteins isolated by the methods also serve as lead compounds for the development of derivative compounds. The derivative compounds can include chemical modifications of amino acids or replace amino acids with chemical structures. The analogs should have a stabilized electronic configuration and molecular conformation that allows key functional groups to be presented in substantially the same way as a lead protein. In particular, the non-peptic compounds have spatial electronic properties which are comparable to the polypeptide binding region, but will typically be much smaller molecules than the polypeptides, frequently having a molecular weight below about 2 CHD and preferably below about 1 CHD. Identification of such non-peptic compounds can be performed through several standard methods such as self-consistent field (CSF) analysis, configuration interaction (CHI) analysis, and normal mode dynamics analysis. Computer programs for implementing these techniques are readily available. See Rein et al., Computer-Assisted Modeling of Receptor-Ligand Interactions (Alan Liss, New York, 1989).
IX. Pharmaceutical Compositions
Polynucleotides, their expression products, and secondary metabolites whose formation is catalyzed by expression products, generated by the above methods are optionally formulated as pharmaceutical compositions. Such a composition comprises one or more active agents, and a pharmaceutically acceptable carrier. A variety of aqueous carriers can be used, e.g., water, buffered water, phosphate-buffered saline (PBS), 0.4% saline, 0.3% glycine, human albumin solution and the like. These solutions are sterile and generally free of particulate matter. The compositions may contain pharmaceutically acceptable auxiliary substances as required to approximate physiological conditions such as pH adjusting and buffering agents, toxicity adjusting agents and the like, for example, sodium acetate, sodium chloride, potassium chloride, calcium chloride and sodium is selected primarily based on fluid volumes, viscosities, and so forth, in accordance with the particular mode of administration selected.
EXAMPLES Example 1 Novel Rhizobium Flaa Genes from Recombination of Rhizobium Lupini Flaa and Rhizobium Meliloti FlaABacterial flagella have a helical filament, a proximal hook and a basal body with the flagellar motor (68). This basic design has been extensively examined in E. coli and S. typhimurium and is broadly applicable to many other bacteria as well as some archaea. The long helical filaments are polymers assembled from flagellin subunits, whose molecular weights range between 20,000 and 65,000, depending on the bacterial species (69). Two types of flagellar filaments, named plain and complex, have been distinguished by their electron microscopically determined surface structures (70). Plain filaments have a smooth surface with faint helical lines, whereas complex filaments exhibit a conspicuous helical pattern of alternating ridges and grooves. These characteristics of complex flagellar filaments are considered to be responsible for the brittle and (by implication) rigid structure that enables them to propel bacteria efficiently in viscous media (71–73). Whereas flagella with plain filaments can alternate between clockwise and counter clockwise rotation (68), all known flagella with complex filaments rotate only clockwise with intermittent stops (74). Since this latter navigation pattern is found throughout bacteria and archaea, it has been suggested that complex flagella may reflect the common background of an ancient, basic motility design (69).
Differing from plain bacterial flagella in the fine structure of their filaments dominated by conspicuous helical bands and in their fragility, the filaments are also resistant against heat decomposition (72). Schmitt et al. (75) showed that bacteriophage 7-7-1 specifically adsorbs to the complex flagella of R. lupini H 13-3 and requires motility for a productive infection of its host. Though the flagellins from R. meliloti and R. lupini are quite similar, bacteriophage 7-7-1 does not infect R. meliloti. Until now complex flagella have been observed in only three species of soil bacteria: Pseudomonas rhodos (73), R. meliloti (76), and R. lupini H13-3 (70, 72). Cells of R. lupini H13-3 posses 5 to 10 peritrichously inserted complex flagella, which were first isolated and analyzed by high resolution electron microscopy and by optical diffraction (70).
Maruyama et al. (77) further found that a higher content of hydrophobic amino acid residues in the complex filament may be one of the main reasons for the unusual properties of complex flagella. By measuring mass per unit length and obtaining three-dimensional reconstruction from electron micrographs, Trachtenberg et al. (73, 78) suggested that the complex filaments of R. lupini are composed of functional dimers.
A. Methods
pRL20 containing R. lupini H13-3flaA gene and pRM40 containing R. meliloti flaA gene are shown in
One microliter of the reaction mixture was used to transform 50 μl of E. coli ES 1301 mutS, E. coli SCS110 and E. coli JM109 competent cells. The transformation efficiency with E. coli JM109 competent cells was about seven times higher than that of E. coli SCS110 and ten times higher than that of E. coli ES1301 mutS, although the overall transformation efficiencies were 10–200 times lower than those of control transformations with the close, covalent and circular pUC19 plasmid.
Two clones were selected at random from the E. coli SCS110 transformants and two from E. coli ES1301 mutS transformants, and plasmid DNA was isolated from these four clones for further DNA sequencing analysis.
B. Results
Streptomyces are among the most important industrial microorganisms due to their ability to produce numerous important secondary metabolites (including many antibiotics) as well as large amounts of enzymes. The approach described here can be used with little modification for directed evolution of native Streptomyces enzymes, some or all of the genes in a metabolic pathways, as well as other heterologous enzymes expressed in Streptomyces.
New antifungal agents are critically needed by the large and growing numbers of immune-compromised AIDS, organ transplant and cancer chemotherapy patients who suffer opportunistic infections. Echinocandin B (ECB), a lipopeptide produced by some species of Aspergillus, has been studied extensively as a potential antifungal. Various antifungal agents with significantly reduced toxicity have been generated by replacing the linoleic acid side chain of A. nidulans echinocandin B with different aryl side chains (79-83). The cyclic hexapeptide ECB nucleus precursor for the chemical acylation is obtained by enzymatic hydrolysis of ECB using Actinoplanes utahensis ECB deacylase. To maximize the conversion of ECB into intact nucleus, this reaction is carried out at pH 5.5 with a small amount of miscible organic solvent to solubilize the ECB substrate. The product cyclic hexapeptide nucleus is unstable at pH above 5.5 during the long incubation required to fully deacylate ECB (84). The pH optimum of ECB deacylase, however, is 8.0–8.5 and its activity is reduced at pH 5.5 and in the presence of more than 2.5% ethanol (84). To improve production of ECB nucleus it is necessary to increase the activity of the ECB deacylase under these process-relevant conditions.
Relatively little is known about ECB deacylase. The enzyme is a heterodimer whose two subunits are derived by processing of a single precursor protein (83). The 19.9 kD α-subunit is separated from the 60.4 kD β-subunit by a 15-amino acid spacer peptide that is removed along with a signal peptide and another spacer peptide in the native organism. The polypeptide is also expressed and processed into functional enzyme in Streptomyces lividans, the organism used for large-scale conversion of ECB by recombinant ECB deacylase. The three-dimensional structure of the enzyme has not been determined, and its sequence shows so little similarity to other possibly related enzymes such as penicillin acylase that a structural model reliable enough to guide a rational effort to engineer the ECB deacylase will be difficult to build. We therefore decided to use directed evolution (85) to improve this important activity.
Protocols suitable for mutagenic PCR and random-priming recombination of the 2.4 kb ECB deacylase gene (73% G+C) have been described recently (86). Here, we further describe the use of heteroduplex recombination to generate new ECB deacylase with enhanced specific activity.
In this case, two Actinoplanes utahensis ECB deacylase mutants, M7-2 and M16, which show higher specific activity at pH 5.5 and in the presence of 10% MeOH were recombined using technique of the in vitro heteroduplex formation and in vivo mismatch repair.
A. Methods:
M7-2 and M16 plasmid DNA (pM7-2 and pM16) (
One microliter of the reaction mixture was used to transform 50 μl of E. coli ES1301 mutS, SCS110 and JM109 competent cells. All transformants from E. coil ES1301 mutS were pooled and E. coil SCS110 were pooled. A plasmid pool was isolated from each pooled library, and this pool was used to transform S. lividans TK23 protoplasts to form a mutant library for deacylase activity screening. Transformants from the S. lividans TK23 libraries were screened for ECB deacylase activity with an in situ plate assay. Transformed protoplasts were allowed to regenerate on R2YE agar plates for 24 hr at 30° C. and to develop in the presence of thiostrepton for 48 hours. When the colonies grew to the proper size, 6 ml of 0.7% agarose solution containing 0.5 mg/ml ECB in 0.1 M sodium acetate buffer (pH 5.5) was poured on top of each R2YE-agar plate and allowed to develop for 18-24 hr at 30° C. Colonies surrounded by a clearing zone larger than that of a control colony containing wild-type plasmid pSHP150-2*, were selected for further characterization.
Selected transformants were inoculated into 20 ml medium containing thiostrepton and grown aerobically at 30° C. for 48 hours, at which point they were analyzed for ECB deacylase activity using HPLC. 100 μl of whole broth was used for a reaction at 30° C. for 30 minutes in 0.1 M NaAc buffer (pH 5.5) containing 10% (v/v) MeOH and 200 μg/ml of ECB substrate. The reactions were stopped by adding 2.5 volumes of methanol, and 20 μl of each sample were analyzed by HPLC on a 100×4.6 mm polyhydroxyethyl aspartamide column (PolyLC Inc., Columbia, Md., USA) at room temperature using a linear acetonitrile gradient starting with 50:50 of A:B (A=93% acetonitrile, 0.1% phosphoric acid; B=70% acetonitrile, 0.1% phosphoric acid) and ending with 30:70 of A:B in 22 min at a flow rate of 2.2 ml/min. The areas of the ECB and ECB nucleus peaks were calculated and subtracted from the areas of the corresponding peaks from a sample culture of S. lividans containing pIJ702* in order to estimate the ECB deacylase activity.
2.0 ml pre-cultures of positive mutants were used to inoculate 50-ml medium and allowed to grow at 30° C. for 96 hr. The supernatants were further concentrated to 1/30 their original volume using an Amicon filtration unit (Beverly, Mass., USA) with molecular weight cutoff of 10 kD. The resulting enzyme samples were diluted with an equal volume of 50 mM KH2PO4 (pH 6.0) buffer and were applied to Hi-Trap ion exchange column (Pharmacia Biotech, Piscataway, N.J., USA). The binding buffer was 50 mM KH2PO4 (pH 6.0), and the elution buffer was 50 mM KH2PO4 (pH 6.0) containing 1.0 M NaCl. A linear gradient from 0 to 1.0 M NaCl was applied in 8 column volumes with a flow rate of 2.7 ml/min. The ECB deacylase fraction eluting at 0.3 M NaCl was concentrated and the buffer was exchanged for 50 mM KH2PO4 (pH 6.0) using Centricon-10 units. Enzyme purity was verified by SDS-PAGE using Coomassie Blue stain, and the concentration was determined using the Bio-Rad Protein Assay Reagent (Hercules, Calif., USA).
A modified HPLC assay was used to determine the activities of the ECB deacylase mutants on ECB substrate (84). Four μg of each purified ECB deacylase mutant was used for activity assay reaction at 30° C. for 30 minutes in 0.1 M NaAc buffer (pH 5.5) containing 10% (v/v) MeOH and different concentrations of ECB substrate. Assays were performed in duplicate. The reactions were stopped by adding 2.5 volumes of methanol, and the HPLC assays were carried out as described above. The absorbance values were recorded, and the initial rates were calculated by least-squares regression of the time progress curves from which the Km and the kcat were calculated.
Activities as a function of pH were measured for the purified ECB deacylases at 30° C. at different pH values: 5, 5.5 and 6 (0.1 M acetate buffer); 7, 7.5, 8 and 8.5 (0.1 M phosphate buffer); 9 and 10 (0.1 M carbonate buffer) using the HPLC assay. Stabilities of purified ECB deacylases were were determined at 30° C. in 0.1 M NaAc buffer (pH 5.5) containing 10% methanol. Samples were withdrawn at different time intervals, and the residual activity was measured in the same buffer with the HPLC assay described above.
B. Results
Initial rates of deacylation with the wild type and M15 at different pH values from 5 to 10 were determined at 200 μg/ml of ECB. The recombined M15 is more active than wild type at pH 5–8. Although the pH dependence of the enzyme activity in this assay is not strong, there is a definite shift of 1.0–1.5 units in the optimum to lower pH, as compared to wild type.
The time courses of deactivation of the purified ECB deacylase mutant M15 was measured in 0.1 M NaAc (pH 5.5) at 30° C. No significant difference in stability was observed between wild type and mutant M15.
The DNA mutations with respect to the wild type ECB deacylase sequence and the positions of the amino acid substitutions in the evolved variants M7-2, M16 and M15 are summarized in
The heteroduplex recombination technique can recombine parent sequences to create novel progeny. Recombination of the M7-2 and M16 genes yielded M15, whose activity is higher than any of its parents (Fid. 13). Of the six base substitutions in M15, five (at positions α50, α171, β57, β129 and β340) were inherited from M7-2, and the other one (β30) came from M16.
This approach provides an alternative to existing methods of DNA recombination and is particularly useful in recombining large genes or entire operons. This method can be used to create recombinant proteins to improve their properties or to study structure-function relationship.
Example 3 Novel Thermostable Bacillus Subtilis Subtilisin E VariantsThis example demonstrates the use in vitro heteroduplex formation followed by in vivo repair for combining sequence information from two different sequences in order to improve the thermostability of Bacillus subtilis subtilisin E.
Genes RC1 and RC2 encode thermostable B. sublilis subtilisin E variants (88). The mutations at base positions 1107 in RC1 and 995 in RC2 (
A. Methods
The strategy underlying this example is shown in
Subtilisin E thermostable mutant genes RC1 and RC2 (
About 5.0 μg of ummethylated pBE3-1 and pBE3-2 DNA were digested with Bam HI and Nde I, respectively, at 37° C. for 1 hour. After agarose gel separation, equimolar concentrations (2.0 nM) of the linearized unmethylated pBE3-1 and pBE3-2 were mixed in 1×SSPE buffer (180 mM NaCl, 1.0 mM EDTA, 10 mM NaH2PO4, pH 7.4). After heating at 96° C. for 10 minutes, the reaction mixture was immediately cooled at 0° C. for 5 min. The mixture was incubated at 68° C. for 2 hr for heteroduplexes to form.
One microliter of the reaction mixture was used to transform 50 μl of E. coli ES 1301 mutS, E. coli SCS110 and E. coli HB101 competent cells.
The transformation efficiency with E. coli HB101 competent cells was about ten times higher than that of E. coli SCS110 and 15 times higher than that of E. coli ES1301 mutS. But in all these cases, the transformation efficiencies were 10–250 times lower than that of the transformation with closed, covalent and circular control pUC19 plasmids.
Five clones from E. coli SCS110 mutant library and five from E. coli ES1301 muts library were randomly chosen, and plasmid DNA was isolated using a QIAprep spin plasmid miniprep kit for further DNA sequencing analysis.
About 2,000 random clones from E. coli HB101 mutant library were pooled and total plasmid DNA was isolated using a QIAGEN-100 column. 0.5–4.0 ug of the isolated plasmid was used to transform Bacillus subtilis DB428 as described previously (88).
About 400 transformants from the Bacillus subtilis DB428 library were subjected to screening. Screening was performed using the assay described previously (88), on succinyl-Ala-Ala-Pro-Phe-p-nitroanilide. B. subtilis DB428 containing the plasmid library were grown on LB plates containing kanamycin (20 μg/ml) plates. After 18 hours at 37° C. single colonies were picked into 96-well plates containing 200 μl SG/kanamycin medium per well. These plates were incubated with shaking at 37° C. for 24 hours to let the cells to grow to saturation. The cells were spun down, and the supernatants were sampled for the thermostability assay.
Two replicates of 96-well assay plates were prepared for each growth plate by transferring 10 μl of supernatant into the replica plates. The subtilisin activities were then measured by adding 100 μl of activity assay solution (0.2 mM succinyl-Ala-Ala-Pro-Phe-p-nitroanilide, 100 mM Tris-HCl, 10 mM CaCl2, pH 8.0, 37° C.). Reaction velocities were measured at 405 nm to over 1.0 min in a ThermoMax microplate reader (Molecular Devices, Sunnyvale Calif.). Activity measured at room temperature was used to calculate the fraction of active clones (clones with activity less than 10% of that of wild type were scored as inactive). Initial activity (Ai) was measured after incubating one assay plate at 65° C. for 10 minutes by immediately adding 100 μl of prewarmed (37° C.) assay solution (0.2 mM succinyl-Ala-Ala-Pro-Phe-p-nitroanilide, 100 mM Tris-HCl, pH 8.0, 10 mM CaCl2, pH 8.0) into each well. Residual activity (Ar) was measured after 40 minute incubation.
B. Results
In vitro heteroduplex formation and in vivo repair was carried out as described above. Five clones from E. coli SCS110 mutant library and five from E. coli ES1301 mutS libraries were selected at random and sequenced.
Since none of the ten mutations locates within the dcm site, the mismatch repair appears generally done via the E. coli long-patch mismatch repair systems. The system repairs different mismatches in a strand-specific manner using the state of N6-methylation of adenine in GATC sequences as the major mechanism for determining the strand to be repaired. With heteroduplexes methylated at GATC sequences on only one DNA strand, repair was shown to be highly biased to the unmethylated strand, with the methylated strand serving as the template for correction. If neither strand was methylated, mismatch repair occurred, but showed little strand preference (23, 24). These results shows that it is preferable to demethylate the DNA to be recombined to promote efficient and random repair of the heteroduplexes.
The rates of subtilisin E thermo-inactivation at 65° C. were estimated by analyzing the 400 random clones from the Bacillus subtilis DB428 library. The thermostabilities obtained from one 96-well plate are shown in
Sequence analysis of the clone exhibiting the highest thermostability among the screened 400 transformants from the E. coli SCS110 heteroduplex library confirmed the presence of both N181D and N218S mutations. Among the 400 transformants from the B. sublilis DB428 library that were screened, approximately 91% of the clones expressed N181D- and/or N218S-type enzyme stabilities, while about 8.0% of the transformants showed only wild-type subtilisin E stability.
Less than 1.0% inactive clone was found, indicating that few new point mutations were introduced in the recombination process. This is consistent with the fact that no new point mutations were identified in the ten sequenced genes (
We have found that the efficiency of heteroduplex recombination can differ considerably from gene to gene [17,57]. In this example, we investigate and optimize a variety of parameters that improve recombination efficiency. DNA substrates used in this example were site-directed mutants of green fluorescent protein from Aequorea victoria. The GFP mutants had a stop codon(s) introduced at different locations along the sequence that abolished their fluorescence. Fluorescent wild type protein could be only restored by recombination between two or more mutations. Fraction of fluorescent colonies was used as a measure of recombination efficiency.
A. Methods
About 2–4 μg of each parent plasmid was used in one recombination experiment. One parent plasmid was digested with Pst I endonuclease another parent with EcoRI. Linearized plasmids were mixed together and 20×SSPE buffer was added to the final concentration 1×(180 mM NaCl, 1 mM EDTA, 10 mM NaH2PO4, pH 7.4). The reaction mixture was heated at 96° C. for 4 minutes, immediately transferred on ice for 4 minutes and the incubation was continued for 2 hours at 68° C.
Target genes were amplified in a PCR reaction with primers corresponding to the vector sequence of pGFP plasmid. Forward primer: 5′-CCGACTGGAAAGCGGGCAGTG-3′, reverse primer 5′-CGGGGCTGGCTTAACTATGCGG-3′. PCR products were mixed together and purified using Qiagen PCR purification kit. Purified products were mixed with 20×SSPE buffer and hybridized as described above. Annealed products were precipitated with ethanol or purified on Qiagen columns and digested with EcoRI and PstI enzymes. Digested products were ligated into PstI and EcoRI digested pGFP vector.
dUTP was added into PCR reaction at final concentrations 200 μM, 40 μM, 8 μM, 1.6 μM, 0.32 μM. PCR reaction and subsequent cloning procedures were performed as described above.
Recombinant plasmids were transformed into XL10 E. coli strain by a modified chemical transformation method. Cells were plated on ampicillin containing LB agar plates and grown overnight at 37° C., followed by incubation at room temperature or at 4° C. until fluorescence developed.
B. Results.
1. Effect of Ligation on Recombination Efficiency.
Two experiments have been performed to test the effect of breaks in the DNA heteroduplex on the efficiency of recombination. In one experiment heteroduplex plasmid was treated with DNA ligase to close all existing single-strand breaks and was transformed in identical conditions as an unligated sample (see Table 1). The ligated samples show up to 7-fold improvement in recombination efficiency over unligated samples.
In another experiment, dUTP was added into PCR reaction to introduce additional breaks into DNA upon repair by uracyl N-glycosylase in the host cells. Table 2 shows that dUMP incorporation significantly suppressed recombination, the extent of suppression increasing with increased dUTP concentration.
2. Effect of Plasmid Size on the Efficiency of Heteroduplex Formation.
Plasmid size was a significant factor affecting recombination efficiency. Two plasmids pGFP (3.3 kb) and a Bacillus shuttle vector pCT1 (about 9 kb) were used in preparing circular heteroduplex-like plasmids following traditional heteroduplex protocol. For the purpose of this experiment (to study the effect of plasmid size on duplex formation), both parents had the same sequences. While pGFP formed about 30–40% of circular plasmid, the shuttle vector yielded less than 10% of this form.
Increase in plasmid size decreases concentration of the ends in the vicinity of each and makes annealing of very long (>0.8 kb) ends that are single-stranded more difficult. This difficulty is avoided by the procedure shown in
3. Efficiency of Recombination vs. Distance Between Mutations
A series of GFP variants was recombined pairwise to study the effect of distance between mutations on the efficiency of recombination. Parental genes were amplified by PCR, annealed and ligated back into pGFP vector. Heteroduplexes were transformed into XL10 E. coli strain.
The first three columns in Table 3 show the results of three independent experiments and demonstrate the dependence of recombination efficiency on the distance between mutations. As expected recombination becomes less and less efficient for very close mutations.
However, it is still remarkable that long-patch repair has been able to recombine mutations separated by only 27 bp.
The last line in Table 3 represents recombination between one single and one double mutants. Wild type GFP could only be restored in the event of double crossover with each individual crossover occurring in the distance of 99 bp only, demonstrating the ability of this method to recombine multiple, closely-spaced mutations.
4. Elimination Of The Parental Double Strands From Heteroduplex Preparations.
Annealing of substrates in vector-free form offers size-advantages relative to annealing of substrates as components of vectors, but does not allow selection for heteroduplexes relative to homoduplexes simply by transformation into host. Asymmetric PCR reactions with only one primer for each parent seeded with appropriate amount of previously amplified and purified gene fragment were run for 100 cycles, ensuring a 100-fold excess of one strand over another. Products of these asymmetrical reactions were mixed and annealed together producing only a minor amount of nonrecombinant duplexes. The last column in Table 3 shows the recombination efficiency obtained from these enriched heteroduplexes. Comparison of the first three columns with the fourth one demonstrates the improvement achieved by asymmetric synthesis of the parental strands.
While the foregoing invention has been described in some detail for purposes of clarity and understanding, it will be clear to one skilled in the art from a reading of this disclosure that various changes in form and detail can be made without departing from the true scope of the invention. All publications and patent documents cited in this application are incorporated by reference in their entirety for all purposes to the same extent as if each individual publication or patent document were so individually denoted.
REFERENCES
- 1. Shao, Z. and Arnold, F. H. 1996. Engineering new functions and altering existing functions. Curr. Opin. Struct. Biol. 6:513–518.
- 2. Kuchner, O and Arnold, F. H. 1997. Directed evolution of enzyme catalysts. Trends in Biotechnol. 15:523–530.
- 3. Abelson, J. N. (ed.) 1996. Combinatorial chemistry. Methods in Enzymol. 267, Academic Press, Inc. San Diego.
- 4. Joyce, G. F. 1992. Directed molecular evolution. Scientific American 267:90–97.
- 5. Stemmer, W. P. C. 1994a. Rapid evolution of a protein in vitro by DNA shuffling. Nature 370:389–391.
- 6. Stemmer, W. P. C. 1994b. DNA shuffling by random fragmentation and reassembly: in vitro recombination for molecular evolution. Proc. Nati. Acad. Sci. USA 91:10747–10751.
- 7. Moore, J. C. and Arnold, F. H. 1996. Directed evolution of a para-nitrobenzyl esterase for aqueous-organic solvents. Nature Biotech. 14:458–467.
- 8. Holland, J. H. 1975. Adaptation in natural and artificial systems. The University Press, Ann Arbor.
- 9. Goldberg, D. E. 1989. Genetic algorithms in search, optimization and machine learning. Addison-Wesley. Reading.
- 10. Eigen, M. 1971. Self-organization of matter and the evolution of biological macromolecules. Naturwissenschaften 58:465–523.
- 11. Rechenberg, L. 1973. Evolutions strategic: Optimierung technischer Systeme nach Prinzipien der biologischen Evolution. Fronimann-Holzboog, Stuttgart.
- 12. Brady, R. M. 1985. Optimization strategies gleaned from biological evolution. Nature 317:804–806.
- 13. Muhlenbein, H. 1991. The parallel genetic algorithm as function optimizer. Parallel Computing 17:619–632.
- 14. Pal, K. F. 1993. Genetic algorithms for the traveling salesman problem-based on a heuristic crossover operation. Bio. Cybem. 69:539–546.
- 15. Pal, K. F. 1995. Genetic algorithm with local optimization. Bio.Cybem. 73:335–341.
- 16. Cami, B., P. Chambon, P. Kourilsky. 1984. Correction of complex heteroduplexes made of mouse H-2 gene sequences in E. coli K-12. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 81:503–507.
- 17. Westmoreland, J, G. Porter, M. Radman and M. A. Resnick. 1997. Highly mismatched molecules resembling recombination intermediates efficiently transform mismatch repair proficient E. coli. Genetics 145:29–38.
- 18. Kramer, B., W. Kramer and H. J. Fritz. 1984. Different base/base mismatches are corrected with different efficiencies by the methyl-directed DNA mismatch-repair system of E. coli. Cell 38:879–887.
- 19. Lu, A. L., S. Clark and P. Modrich. 1983. Methyl-affected repair of DNA base pair mismatches in vitro. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 80:4639–4643.
- 20. Carraway, M. and Marinus, M. G. 1993. Repair of heteroduplex DNA molecules with multibase loops in Escherichia coli. J Bacteriol. 175:3972–3980.
- 21. Cooper, D. L., Lahue, R. S. and Modrich, P. 1993. Methyl-directed mismatch repair is bi-directional. J. Biol. Chem. 268:11823–11829.
- 22. Au, K. G., Welsh, K. and Modrich, P. 1992. Initiation of methyl-directed mismatch repair. J. Biol. Chem. 267:12142–12148.
- 23. Meselson, M. 1988. Methyl-directed repair of DNA mismatches, p. 91–113. In K. B. Low (ed.), Recombination of the Genetic Material. Academic Press, Inc., San Diego, Calif.
- 24. Fishel, R. A., Siegel, E. C. and Kolodner, R. 1986. Gene conversion in Escherichia coli. Resolution of heteroallelic mismatched nucleotides by co-repair. J. Mol. Biol. 188:147–157.
- 25. Pukkila, P. J., J. Peterson, G. Herman, P. Modrich, and M. Meselson. 1983. Effects of high levels of DNA adenine methylation on methyl-directed mismatch repair in Escherichia coli. Genetics 104:571–582.
- 26. Radman, M., R. E. Wagner, B. W. Glickman, and M. Meselson. 1980. DNA methylation, mismatch correction and genetic stability, p. 121–130. In M. Alacevic (ed.) Process in Environmental Mutagenesis. Elsevier/North-Holland Biochemical Press, Amsterdam.
- 27. Sambrook, J., Fritsch, E. F. and Maniatis, T. 1989. Molecular cloning: A Laboratory Manual. 2nd ed. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.
- 28. Allen, D. J., Makhov, A., Grilley, M., Taylor, J., Thresher, R., Modrich, P. and Griffith, J. D. MutS mediates heteroduplex loop formation by a translocation mechanism. 1997. EMBO J. 16: 4467–4476.
- 30. Tsai-Wu, J. J. and Lu, A. L. 1994. Escherichia coli mutY-dependent mismatch repair involves DNA polymerase I and a short repair tract. Mol. Gen. Genet. 244:444–450.
- 31. Worth, L. Jr., Clark, S., Radman, M. and Modrich, P. 1994. Mismatch repair proteins MutS and MutL inhibit RecA-catalyzed strand transfer between diverged DNAs. Proc. Nati. Acad. Sci. USA 91:3238–3241.
- 32. Fox, M. S., Radicella, J. P. and Yamamoto, K. 1994. Some features of base pair mismatch repair and its role in the formation of genetic recombinants. Experientia 50:253–260.
- 33. Radicella, J. P., Clark, E. A., Chen, S. and Fox, M. S. 1993. Patch length of localized repair events: role of DNA polymerase I in mutY-dependent mismatch repair. J. Bacteriol. 175: 7732–7736.
- 34. Kraczkiewicz-Dowjat, A. and Fishel, R. 1990. RecB-recC-dependent processing of heteroduplex DNA stimulates recombination of an adjacent gene in Escherichia coli. J. Bacteriol. 172:172–178.
- 35. Radman, M. 1989. Mismatch repair and the fidelity of genetic recombination. Genome 31: 68–73.
- 36. Raposa, S. and Fox, M. S. 1987. Some features of base pair mismatch and heterology repair in Escherichia coli. Genetics 117:381–390.
- 37. Jones, M., Wagner, R. and Radman, M. 1987. Mismatch repair and recombination in E. coli. Cell 50:621–626.
- 38. Langle-Rouault, F., Maenhaut-Michel, G. and Radman, M. 1987. GATC sequences, DNA nicks and the MutH function in Escherichia coli mismatch repair. EMBO J. 6:1121–1127
- 39. Glazer, P. M., Sarkar, S. N., Chisholm, G. E. and Summers, W. C. 1987. DNA mismatch repair detected in human cell extracts. Mol. Cell. Biol. 7:218–224
- 40. Laengle-Rouault, F., Maenhaut-Michel, G. and Radman M. 1986. GATC sequence and mismatch repair in Escherichia coli. EMBO J. 5:2009–2013.
- 41. Bauer, J., Krammer, G. and Knippers, R. 1981. Asymmetric repair of bacteriophage T7 heteroduplex DNA. Mol. Gen. Genet. 181:541–547.
- 42. Wildenberg, J. and Meselson, M. 1975. Mismatch repair in heteroduplex DNA. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 72:2202–2206.
- 43. Kirkpatrick, D. T. and Petes, T. D. 1997. Repair of DNA loops involves DNA-mismatch and nucleotide-excision repair proteins. Nature 387: 929–31.
- 44. Leung, W., Malkova, A. and Haber, J. E. 1997. Gene targeting by linear duplex DNA frequently occurs by assimilation of a single strand that is subject to preferential mismatch correction. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 94: 6851–6856.
- 45. Hunter, N. and Borts, R. H. 1997. Mlh1 is unique among mismatch repair proteins in its ability to promote crossing-over during meiosis. Genes Dev. 11:0890–9369.
- 46. Alani, E., Lee, S., Kane, M. F., Griffith, J. and Kolodner, R. D. 1997. Saccharomyces cerevisiae MSH2, a mispaired base recognition protein, also recognizes Holliday junctions in DNA. J. Mol. Biol. 265:289–301.
- 47. Varlet, I., Canard, B., Brooks, P., Cerovic, G. and Radman, M. 1996. Mismatch repair in Xenopus egg extracts: DNA strand breaks act as signals rather than excision points. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 93:10156–10161.
- 48. Nicolas, A. and Petes, T. D. 1994. Polarity of meiotic gene conversion in fungi: contrasting views. Experientia 50:242–52.
- 49. Bishop, D. K., J. Andersen, and R. D. Kolodner. 1989. Specificity of mismatch repair following transformation of Saccharomyces cerevisiae with heteroduplex plasmid DNA. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 86:3713–3717.
- 50. Kramer, B., W. Kramer, M. S. Williamson, and S. Fogel. 1989. Heteroduplex DNA correction in Saccharomyces cerevisiae is mismatch specific and requires functional PMS genes Mol. Cell. Biol. 9:4432–4440.
- 51. Baynton, K., Bresson-Roy, A. and Fuchs, R. P. 1998. Analysis of damage tolerance pathways in Saccharomyces cerevisiae: a requirement for Rev3 DNA polymerase in translation synthesis. Mol. Cell. Biol. 18: 960–966.
- 52. Alani, E., Reenan, R. A. and Kolodner, R. D. 1994. Interaction between mismatch repair and genetic recombination in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Genetics 137:19–39.
- 54. Bishop, D. K., Williamson, M. S., Fogel, S. and Kolodner, R. D. 1987. The role of heteroduplex correction in gene conversion in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Nature 328:362–364.
- 55. Bishop, D. K. and Kolodner, R. D. 1986. Repair of heteroduplex plasmid DNA after transformation into Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Mol. Cell Biol. 6:3401–3409.
- 56. White, J. H., Lusnak, K. and Fogel, S. 1985. Mismatch-specific post-meiotic segregation frequency in yeast suggests a heteroduplex recombination intermediate. Nature 315: 350–352.
- 57. Abastado, J.-P., B. Cami, T. H. Dinh, J. Igoler and P. Kourilsky. 1984. Processing of complex heteroduplexes in E. coli and Cos-1 monkey cells. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 81:5792–5796.
- 58. Brown, T. C. and J. Jiricny. 1987. A specific mismatch repair event protects mammalian cells from loss of 5-methylcytosine. Cell 50:945–950.
- 59. Sibghat-Ullah, and R-S, Day. 1993. DNA-substrate sequence specificity of human G:T mismatch repair activity. Nucleic Acids Res. 21:1281–1287.
- 60. Miller, E. M., Hough, H. L., Cho, J. W. and Nickoloff, J. A. 1997. Mismatch repair by efficient nick-directed, and less efficient mismatch-specific, mechanisms in homologous recombination intermediates in Chinese hamster ovary cells. Genetics 147: 743–753.
- 61. Deng, W. P. and Nickoloff, J. A. 1994. Mismatch repair of heteroduplex DNA intermediates of extrachromosomal recombination in mammalian cells. Mol. Cell Biol. 14:400–406.
- 62. Thomas, D. C., Roberts, J. D. and Kunkel, T. A. 1991. Heteroduplex repair in extracts of human HeLa cells. J. Biol. Chem. 266:3744–51.
- 63. Folger, K. R., Thomas, K. and Capecchi, M. R. 1985. Efficient correction of mismatched bases in plasmid heteroduplexes injected into cultured mammalian cell nuclei. Mol. Cell. Biol. 5:70–74.
- 64. Fang, W., Wu, J. Y. and Su, M. J. 1997. Methyl-directed repair of mismatched small heterologous sequences in cell extracts from Escherichia coli. J. Biol. Chem. 272: 22714–22720.
- 65. Smith, J. and Modrich, P. 1997. Removal of polymerase-produced mutant sequences from PCR products. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 94: 6847–50.
- 66. Su, S. S., Grilley, M., Thresher, R., Griffith, J. and Modrich, P. 1989. Gap formation is associated with methyl-directed mismatch correction under conditions of restricted DNA synthesis. Genome 31:104–11.
- 67. Muster-Nassal, C. and Kolodner, R. 1986. Mismatch correction catalyzed by cell-free extracts of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 83:7618–7622.
- 68. Macnab, R. M. 1992. Genetic and biogenesis of bacterial flagella. Annul Rev. Genet. 26:131–158.
- 69. Wilson, D. R. and Beveridge, T. J. 1993. Bacterial flagellar filaments and their component flagellins. Can. J. Microbiol. 39:451–472.
- 70. Schmitt, R., Raskal, A. and Mayer, F. 1974. Plain and complex flagella of Pseudomonas rhodos: analysis of fine structure and composition. J. Bacteriol. 117:844–857.
- 71. Gotz, R., Limmer, N., Ober, K. and Schmitt, R. 1982. Motility and chemotaxis in two strains of Rhizobium with complex flagella. J. Gen. Microbiol. 128:789–798.
- 72. Schmitt, R., Bambergerl., Acker G. and Mayer, F. 1974. Fine structure analysis of the complex flagella of Rhizobium lupini H 13-3. Arch. Microbiol. 100:145–162.
- 73. Trachtenberg, S., DeRosier, D. J. and Macnab, R. M. 1987. Three-dimensional structure of the complex flagellar filament of Rhizobium lupini and its relation to the structure of the plain filaments. J. Mol. Biol. 195:603–620,
- 74. Götz, R. and Schmitt, R. 1987. Rhizobium meliloti swims by unidirectional inten-nittent rotation of right-handed flagellar helices. J. Bacteriol. 169:3146–3150.
- 75. Lotz, W., Acker, G. and Schmitt, R. 1977. Bacteriophage 7-7-1 adsorbs to the complex flagella of Rhizobium lipini H13-3. J. Gen. Virol. 34:9–17.
- 76. Krupski, G., Gotz, F., Ober, K., Pleicr, E. and Schmitt, R. 1985. Structure of complex flagellar filaments in Rhizobium meliloti. J. Bacteriol. 162:361–366.
- 77. Maruyama, M., Lodderstaedt, G. and Schmitt, R. 1978. Purification and, biochemical properties of complex flagella isolated from Rhizobium lupini H13-3. Biochem. Biophys. Acta 535:110–124.
- 78. Trachtenberg, S., DeRosier, D. J., Aizawa, S. I. and Macnab, R. M. 1986. Pairwise perturbation of flagellin subunits. The structural basis for the differences between plain and complex bacterial flagellar filaments. J. Mol. Biol. 190:569–576.
- 79. Gordee, R. S., Zeckner, D. J., Ellis, L. F., Thakkar, A. L. and Howard, L. C. 1984. In vitro and in vivo anti-Candida activity and toxicity of LY121019. J. Antibiotics 37:1054–1065.
- 80. Debono, M., Willard, K. E., Kirst, H. A., Wind, J. A., Crouse, G. D., Tao, E. V., Vicenzi, J. T., Counter, F. T., Ott, J. L., Ose, E. E. and Omura, S. 1989. Synthesis of new analogs of echinocandin B by enzymatic deacylation and chemical reacylation of the echinocandin B peptide: synthesis of the antifungal agent cilofungin (LY121019). J. Antibiotics 42(3): 389–397.
- 81. Debono, M. and Gordee, R. S. 1994. Antibiotics that inhibit fungal cell-wall development. Annu. Rev. Microbiol. 48: 471–497.
- 82. Debono, M., Turner, W. W., Lagrandeur, L., Burkhardt, F. J., Nissen, J. S., Nichols, K. K., Rodriguez, M. J., Zweifel, M. J., Zeckner, D. J., Gordee, R. S., Tang. J. and Parr, T. R. 1995. Semisynthetic chemical modification of the antifungal lipopeptide echinocandin B (ECB): structure-activity studies of the lipophilic and geometric parameters of polyarylated acyl analogs of ECB. J. Med. Chem. 38(17): 3271–3281.
- 83. Yeh, W. K. 1997. Evolving enzyme technology for pharmaceutical applications: case studies. J. Ind. Microbiol. Biotechnol. 19(5–6): 334–343.
- 84. Boeck, L. D., Fukuda, D., Abbott, B. J. and M. Debono. 1989. Deacylation of echinocandin B by Actinoplanes utahensis. J. Antibiotics 42(3): 382–388
- 85. Arnold, F. H. 1998. Design by directed evolution. Accts. Chem. Res. 31:125–131.
- 86. Shao, Z., Callahan, M. and Arnold, F. H. 1998. Directed enzyme evolution of Actinoplane utahensis ECB deacylase in Streptomyces lividans for enhanced specific activity. Manuscript submitted.
- 87. Shao, Z., Zhao, H., Giver, L. and Arnold, F. H. 1998. Random-priming in vitro recombination: an effective tool for directed evolution. Nucleic Acids Res. 26 (2): 681–683.
- 88. Zhao, H. and Arnold, F. H., 1997. Functional and nonfunctional mutations distinguished by random recombination of homologous genes. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 94:7997–8000.
- 89. Zhao, H., Giver, L., Shao, Z., Affholter, J. A., and Arnold, F. H. 1998. Molecular evolution by staggered extension process (StEP) in vitro recombination. Nat. Biotechnol. 16: 258–261.
- 90. Judo, M. S. B., Wedel, A. B. and Wilson, C. 1998. Stimulation and suppression of PCR-mediated recombination. Nucleic Acids Res. 26: 1819–1825.
- 91. Okkels, J. S. 1997. Method for preparing polypeptide variants. PCT application WO 97/07205.
- 92. Gray, G. L. 1992. Hybrid prokaryotic polypeptides produced by in vivo homologous recombination. U.S. Pat. No. 5,093,257.
- 93. Weber, H. and Weissmann, C. 1983. Formation of genes coding for hybrid proteins by recombination between related, cloned genes in E. coli. Nucl. Acids Res. 11:5661–5669.
- 94. Maryon, E. and Carroll, D. 1991. Characterization of recombination intermediates from DNA injected into Xenopus laevis oocytes: evidence for a nonconservative mechanism of homologous recombination. Mol. Cell. Biol. 11:3278–3287.
Claims
1. A method for evolving a polynucleotide toward acquisition of a desired property, comprising
- (a) incubating a population of more than two parental polynucleotide variants under conditions to generate annealed polynucleotides comprising heteroduplexes;
- (b) exposing the heteroduplexes to enzymes of a DNA repair system to convert the heteroduplexes to parental polynucleotide variants or recombined polynucleotide variants;
- (c) screening or selecting the recombined polynucleotide variants for the desired property.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein the heteroduplexes are exposed to the enzymes of the DNA repair system in vitro.
3. A method for evolving a polynucleotide toward acquisition of a desired property, comprising
- (a) incubating a population of parental polynucleotide variants under conditions to generate annealed polynucleotides comprising heteroduplexes, wherein there is at least sufficient diversity between the population of parental polynucleotides variants that recombination can generate more diverse products than there are starting materials;
- (b) exposing the heteroduplexes to enzymes of a DNA repair system in vitro to convert the heteroduplexes to parental polynucleotide variants or recombined polynucleotide variants;
- (c) screening or selecting the recombined polynucleotide variants for the desired property.
4. The method of claim 2, wherein the cellular DNA repair system comprises cellular extracts.
5. The method of claim 1, further comprising introducing the heteroduplexes into cells, whereby the heteroduplexes are exposed to the enzymes of the DNA repair system of the cells in vivo.
6. The method of claim 5, wherein the annealed polynucleotides further comprise homoduplexes and the introducing step selects for transformed cells comprising the heteroduplexes relative to transformed cells comprising homoduplexes.
7. The method of claim 5, wherein a first polynucleotide variant is provided as a component of a first vector, and a second polynucleotide variant is provided as a component of a second vector, and the method further comprises converting the first and second vectors to linearized forms in which the first and second polynucleotide variants occur at opposite ends, whereby in the incubating step single-stranded forms of the first linearized vector reanneal with each other to form linear first vector, single-stranded forms of the second linearized vector reanneal with each other to form linear second vector, and single-stranded linearized forms of the first and second vectors anneal with each to form a circular heteroduplex bearing a nick in each strand, and the introducing step selects for transformed cells comprising the circular heteroduplexes relative to the linear first and second vector.
8. The method of claim 7, wherein the first and second vectors are converted to linearized forms by PCR.
9. The method of claim 7, wherein the first and second vectors are converted to linearized forms by digestion with first and second restriction enzymes.
10. The method of claim 1 or 2, wherein the population of polynucleotide variants are provided in double stranded form, and the method further comprising converting the double stranded polynucleotides to single stranded polynucleotides before the annealing step.
11. The method of claim 1 or 2, wherein the converting step comprises:
- conducting asymmetric amplification of the first and second double stranded polynucleotide variants to amplify a first strand of the first polynucleotide variant, and a second strand of the second polynucleotide variant, whereby the first and second strands anneal in the incubating step to form a heteroduplex.
12. The method of claim 11, wherein the first and second double-stranded polynucleotide variants are provided in vector-free form, and the method further comprises incorporating the heteroduplex into a vector.
13. The method of claim 5 wherein the population of polynucleotides comprises first and second polynucleotides provided in double stranded form, and the method further comprises incorporating the first and second polynucleotides as components of first and second vectors, whereby the first and second polynucleotides occupy opposite ends of the first and second vectors, whereby in the incubating step single-stranded forms of the first linearized vector reanneal with each other to form linear first vector, single-stranded forms of the second linearized vector reanneal with each other to form linear second vector, and single-stranded linearized forms of the first and second vectors anneal with each to form a circular heteroduplex bearing a nick in each strand, and the introducing step selects for transformed cells comprises the circular heteroduplexes relative to the linear first and second vector.
14. The method of claim 5, further comprising sealing nicks in the heteroduplexes to form covalently-closed circular heteroduplexes before the introducing step.
15. The method of claim 12, wherein the first and second polynucleotides are obtained from chromosomal DNA.
16. The method of claim 1, 2, or 3 further comprising repeating steps (a)–(c) whereby the incubating step in a subsequent cycle is performed on recombinant variants from a previous cycle.
17. The method of claim 1, 2 or 3, wherein the polynucleotide variants encode a polypeptide.
18. The method of claim 1, wherein the population of polynucleotide variants comprises at least 20 variants.
19. The method of claim 1 or 2, wherein the population of polynucleotide variants are at least 10 kb in length.
20. The method of claim 1, 2 or 3, wherein the population of polynucleotide variants comprises natural variants.
21. The method of claim 1, 2, or 3 wherein the population of polynucleotides comprises variants generated by mutagenic PCR.
22. The method of claim 1, 2, or 3, wherein the desired property is a functional feature not found in the parents.
23. The method of claim 1, 2, or 3, wherein the parental polynucleotides substrates are generated by random mutagenesis.
24. The method of claim 1, 2, or 3, wherein the desired property is an enhanced enzyme activity relative to the parental polynucleotide substrates.
25. The method of claim 1, 2 or 3, wherein the population of polynucleotide variants includes at least 5 polynucleotides having at least 90% sequence identity with one another.
4683202 | July 28, 1987 | Mullis |
4800159 | January 24, 1989 | Mullis et al. |
4816567 | March 28, 1989 | Cabilly et al. |
4959312 | September 25, 1990 | Sirotkin |
4965188 | October 23, 1990 | Mullis et al. |
4994368 | February 19, 1991 | Goodman et al. |
4994379 | February 19, 1991 | Chang |
5023171 | June 11, 1991 | Ho et al. |
5043272 | August 27, 1991 | Hartley |
5066584 | November 19, 1991 | Gyllensten et al. |
5093257 | March 3, 1992 | Gray |
5106727 | April 21, 1992 | Hartley et al. |
5169764 | December 8, 1992 | Shooter et al. |
5176995 | January 5, 1993 | Sninsky et al. |
5187083 | February 16, 1993 | Mullis |
5223408 | June 29, 1993 | Goeddel et al. |
5234824 | August 10, 1993 | Mullis |
5264563 | November 23, 1993 | Huse |
5279952 | January 18, 1994 | Wu |
5314809 | May 24, 1994 | Erlich et al. |
5316935 | May 31, 1994 | Arnold et al. |
5356801 | October 18, 1994 | Rambosek et al. |
5360728 | November 1, 1994 | Prasher |
5418149 | May 23, 1995 | Gelfand et al. |
5422266 | June 6, 1995 | Cormier et al. |
5470725 | November 28, 1995 | Borriss et al. |
5489523 | February 6, 1996 | Mathur |
5502167 | March 26, 1996 | Waldmann et al. |
5512463 | April 30, 1996 | Stemmer |
5514568 | May 7, 1996 | Stemmer |
5521077 | May 28, 1996 | Khosla et al. |
5523388 | June 4, 1996 | Huse |
5541309 | July 30, 1996 | Prasher |
5556750 | September 17, 1996 | Modrich |
5556772 | September 17, 1996 | Sorge et al. |
5571708 | November 5, 1996 | Yang et al. |
5574205 | November 12, 1996 | Kucherlapati et al. |
5605793 | February 25, 1997 | Stemmer |
5629179 | May 13, 1997 | Mierendorf et al. |
5652116 | July 29, 1997 | Grandi et al. |
5679522 | October 21, 1997 | Modrich |
5698426 | December 16, 1997 | Huse |
5714316 | February 3, 1998 | Weiner et al. |
5723323 | March 3, 1998 | Kauffman et al. |
5756316 | May 26, 1998 | Schellenberger |
5763192 | June 9, 1998 | Kauffman et al. |
5770434 | June 23, 1998 | Huse |
5773267 | June 30, 1998 | Jacobs et al. |
5783431 | July 21, 1998 | Peterson et al. |
5795747 | August 18, 1998 | Henco et al. |
5808022 | September 15, 1998 | Huse |
5811238 | September 22, 1998 | Stemmer et al. |
5814476 | September 29, 1998 | Kauffman et al. |
5817483 | October 6, 1998 | Kauffman et al. |
5824469 | October 20, 1998 | Horwitz et al. |
5824485 | October 20, 1998 | Thompson et al. |
5824514 | October 20, 1998 | Kauffman et al. |
5830696 | November 3, 1998 | Short |
5830721 | November 3, 1998 | Stemmer et al. |
5834252 | November 10, 1998 | Stemmer et al. |
5837458 | November 17, 1998 | Minshull et al. |
5843643 | December 1, 1998 | Ratner |
5851813 | December 22, 1998 | Desrosiers |
5858725 | January 12, 1999 | Crowe et al. |
5866363 | February 2, 1999 | Pieczenik |
5871974 | February 16, 1999 | Huse |
5877402 | March 2, 1999 | Maliga et al. |
5925749 | July 20, 1999 | Mathur et al. |
5928905 | July 27, 1999 | Stemmer et al. |
5939250 | August 17, 1999 | Short |
5955358 | September 21, 1999 | Huse |
5958672 | September 28, 1999 | Short |
5962258 | October 5, 1999 | Mathur et al. |
5965408 | October 12, 1999 | Short |
5965415 | October 12, 1999 | Radman |
5976862 | November 2, 1999 | Kauffman et al. |
6001574 | December 14, 1999 | Short et al. |
6004788 | December 21, 1999 | Short |
6030779 | February 29, 2000 | Short |
6051409 | April 18, 2000 | Hansen et al. |
6054267 | April 25, 2000 | Short |
6057103 | May 2, 2000 | Short |
6071889 | June 6, 2000 | Weiss et al. |
6074853 | June 13, 2000 | Pati et al. |
6087177 | July 11, 2000 | Wohlstadter |
6087341 | July 11, 2000 | Khavari |
6093873 | July 25, 2000 | Chambon et al. |
6096548 | August 1, 2000 | Stemmer |
6103463 | August 15, 2000 | Chetverin et al. |
6117679 | September 12, 2000 | Stemmer |
6132970 | October 17, 2000 | Stemmer |
6165793 | December 26, 2000 | Stemmer |
6168919 | January 2, 2001 | Short |
6171820 | January 9, 2001 | Short |
6174673 | January 16, 2001 | Short |
6180406 | January 30, 2001 | Stemmer |
6277638 | August 21, 2001 | Stemmer |
6287861 | September 11, 2001 | Stemmer et al. |
6291242 | September 18, 2001 | Stemmer |
6297053 | October 2, 2001 | Stemmer |
6323030 | November 27, 2001 | Stemmer |
6352842 | March 5, 2002 | Short et al. |
6358709 | March 19, 2002 | Short et al. |
6361974 | March 26, 2002 | Short et al. |
6365408 | April 2, 2002 | Stemmer |
6379964 | April 30, 2002 | del Cardayre et al. |
746786 | May 2002 | AU |
252 666 | December 1998 | EP |
544 809 | December 1998 | EP |
563 296 | March 1999 | EP |
552 266 | January 2000 | EP |
876 509 | September 2001 | EP |
911 396 | September 2001 | EP |
1 138 763 | October 2001 | EP |
934 999 | January 2002 | EP |
752 008 | April 2002 | EP |
2-303489 | December 1990 | JP |
WO 90/07576 | July 1990 | WO |
WO 90/14424 | November 1990 | WO |
WO 90/14430 | November 1990 | WO |
WO 91/01087 | February 1991 | WO |
WO 91/06570 | May 1991 | WO |
WO 91/06643 | May 1991 | WO |
WO 91/06645 | May 1991 | WO |
WO 91/07506 | May 1991 | WO |
WO 91/15581 | October 1991 | WO |
WO 91/16427 | October 1991 | WO |
WO 92/06176 | April 1992 | WO |
WO 92/07075 | April 1992 | WO |
WO 92/18645 | October 1992 | WO |
WO 93/01282 | January 1993 | WO |
WO 93/02191 | February 1993 | WO |
WO 93/06213 | April 1993 | WO |
WO 93/11237 | June 1993 | WO |
WO 93/12228 | June 1993 | WO |
WO 93/15208 | August 1993 | WO |
WO 93/16192 | August 1993 | WO |
WO 93/18141 | September 1993 | WO |
WO 93/19172 | September 1993 | WO |
WO 93/25237 | December 1993 | WO |
WO 94/03596 | February 1994 | WO |
WO 94/09817 | May 1994 | WO |
WO 94/11496 | May 1994 | WO |
WO 94/13804 | June 1994 | WO |
WO 95/17413 | June 1995 | WO |
WO 95/22625 | August 1995 | WO |
WO 96/17056 | June 1996 | WO |
WO 96/33207 | October 1996 | WO |
WO 97/07205 | February 1997 | WO |
WO 97/20078 | June 1997 | WO |
WO 97/25410 | July 1997 | WO |
WO 97/35957 | October 1997 | WO |
WO 97/35966 | October 1997 | WO |
WO 98/01581 | January 1998 | WO |
WO 98/27230 | June 1998 | WO |
WO 98/28416 | July 1998 | WO |
WO 98/41622 | September 1998 | WO |
WO 98/41623 | September 1998 | WO |
WO 98/41653 | September 1998 | WO |
WO 98/42832 | October 1998 | WO |
WO 99/29902 | June 1999 | WO |
WO 00/04190 | January 2000 | WO |
WO 00/06718 | February 2000 | WO |
WO 00/09727 | February 2000 | WO |
WO 00/18906 | April 2000 | WO |
- Jones et al., Biotechniques 10 : 62-66 (1991).
- Adey et al., “Preparation of second-generation phage libraries,” Phage Disp. Pept. Proteins, eds. Kay et al., pp. 277-291 (1996).
- Andersson et al., “Muller's ratchet decreases fitness of a DNA-based microbe”, PNAS, 93:906-907 (Jan. 1996).
- Arkin et al., “An Algorithm for Protein Engineering: Simulations of Recursive Ensemble Mutagenesis” Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 89(16):7811-7815 (1992).
- Atreya et al., “Construction of in-frame chimeric plant genes by simplified PCR strategies,” Plant Mol. Biol., 19:517-522 (1992).
- Balint et al., “Antibody Engineering By Parsimonious Mutagenesis”, Gene, 137(1):109-118 (1993).
- Bailey, “Toward a Science of Metabolic Engineering”, Science, 252: 1668-1680 (1991).
- Barrett et al., “Genotypic analysis of multiple loci in somatic cells by whole genome amplification”, Nuc. Acids Res., 23(17):3488-3492 (1995).
- Bartel et al., “Isolation of New Ribozymes From a Large Pool of Random Sequences”, Science, 261:1411-1418 (1993).
- Beaudry et al., “Directed Evolution of an RNA Enzyme,” Science, 257:635-641 (1992).
- Berger et al., “Phoenix Mutagenesis: One-Step Reassembly of Multiply Cleaved Plasmids With Mixtures of Mutant and Wild-Type Fragments,” Anal. Biochem., 214:571-579 (1993).
- Berkhout et al., “In Vivo Selection of Randomly Mutated Retroviral Genomes,” Nucleic Acids Research, 21(22):5020-5024 (1993).
- Bock et al., “Selection of single-stranded DNA molecules that bind and inhibit human thrombin,” Nature, 355:564-566 (Feb. 2, 1992).
- Cadwell et al., “Randomization of Genes by PCR Mutagenesis,” PCR Methods and Applications, 2:28-33 (1992).
- Calogero et al., “In Vivo Recombination and the Production of Hybrid Genes,” Microbiology Letters, 76:41-44 (1992).
- Cameron et al., “Cellular and Metabolic Engineering An Overview”, Applied Biochem, Biotech.. 38: 105-140 (1993).
- Caren et al., “Efficient Sampling of Protein Sequence Space for Multiple Mutants,” Biotechnology, 12(5):517-520 (1994).
- Carter, P., “Improved Oligonucleotide-Directed Mutagenesis Using M13 Vectors,” Methods in Enzymology, 154:382-383 (1985).
- Chakrabarty, “Microbial Degradation of Toxic Chemicals: Evolutionary Insights and Practical Considerations”, ASM News, 62(3):130-137 (1996).
- Chater, “The Improving Prospects for Yield Increase by Genetic Engineering in Antibiotic-Producing Streptomycetes”, Biotechnology, 8: 115-121 (Feb. 1990).
- Chen et al., “Tuning the activity of an enzyme for unusual environments: Sequential random mutagenesis of subtilisin E for catalysis in dimethylformamide”, PNAS, 90: 5618-5622 (Jun. 1993).
- Clackson et al., “Making antibody fragments using phage display libraries,” Nature, 352:624-628 (Aug. 15, 1991).
- Collet et al., “A Binary plasmid System for shuffling combinatorial antibody Libraries,” PNAS, 89(21):10026-10030 (1992).
- Crameri et al., “Combinatorial Multiple Cassette Mutagenesis Creates All The Permutations Of Mutant And Wild-Type Sequences”, Biotechniques, 18(2):194-196 (1995).
- Crameri et al., “Improved Green Fluorescent Protein By Molecular Evolution Using DNA Shuffling”, Nat. Biotechnol., 14(3):315-319 (1996).
- Crameri et al., “Construction And Evolution Of Antibody-Phage Libraries By DNA Shuffling”, Nat. Med., 2(1):100-102 (1996).
- Crameri et al., “Molecular Evolution Of An Arsenate Detoxification Pathway By DNA Shuffling”, Nat. Biotechnol., 15(5):436-438 (1997).
- Crameri et al., “DNA Shuffling Of A Family Of Genes From Diverse Species Accelerates Directed Evolution”, Nature, 391 (3664):288-291 (1998).
- Crameri et al., “10(20)-Fold aptamer library amplification without gel purification,” Nuc. Acids Res., 21(18):4410 (1993).
- Cull et al., “Screening for receptor ligands using large libraries of peptides linked to the C terminus of the lac repressor,” PNAS, 89:1865-1869 (Mar. 1992).
- Cwirla et al., “Peptides on phage: A vast library of peptides for identifying ligands,” PNAS, 87:6378-6382 (Aug. 1990).
- Daugherty et al., “Polymerase chain reaction facilitates the cloning, CDR-grafting, and rapid expression of a murine monoclonal antibody directed against the CD18 component of leukocyte integrins,” Nuc. Acids Res., 19(9):2471-2476 (1991).
- Delagrave et al., “Recursive Ensemble Mutagenesis,” Protein Engineering, 6(3):327-331 (1993).
- Delagrave et al., “Searching Sequence Space to Engineer Proteins: Exponential Ensemble Mutagenesis,” Biotechnoloy, 11:1548-1552 (Dec. 1993).
- Dieffenbach et al., PCR Primer. A Laboratory Manual, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, pp. 583-589, 591-601, 603-612, and 613-621 (1995).
- Dube et al., “Artificial mutants Generated by the Insertion of Random Oligonucleotides into the Putative Nucleoside Binding Site of the HSV-1 Thymidine Kinase Gene,” Biochemistry, 30(51):11760-11767 (1991).
- Evnin et al., “Substrate specificity of trypsin investigated by using a genetic selection”, PNAS, 87:6659-6663 (Sep. 1990).
- Fang et al., “Human Strand-specific Mismatch Repair Occurs by a Bidirectional Mechanism Similar to That of the Bacterial Reaction”, J. Biol. Chem., 268(16): 11838-11844 (Jun. 5, 1993).
- Feinberg et al., “A Technique for Radiolabeling DNA Restriction Endonuclease Fragments to High Specific Activity,” Anal. Biochem., 132:6-13 (1983).
- Fisch et al., “A Strategy Of Exon Shuffling For Making Large Peptide Repertoires Displayed On Filamentous Bacteriophage”, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 93(15):7761-7766 (1996).
- Fullen et al., “Genetic Algorithms and Recursive Ensemble Mutagenesis in Protein Engineering,” Complexity Int'l 1994 I, printed from website http://www.csu.edu.au/ci/vol1/fuellen/REM.html on Dec. 7, 1999.
- Gates et al., “Affinity Selective Isolation Of Ligands From Peptide Libraries Through Display On A Lac Repressor ‘Headpiece Dimer’”, J. Mol. Biol., 255(3):373-386 (1996).
- Ghosh et al., “Arginine-395 Is Required for Efficient in Vivo and in Vitro Aminoacylation of tRNAs by Escherichia coli Methionyl-tRNA Stnthetase,” Biochemistry, 30:11767-11774 (1991).
- Goldman et al., “An Algorithmically Optimized Combinatorial Library Screened by digital Imaging Spectroscopy,” Biotechnology, 10:1557-1561 (Dec. 1992).
- Graf et al., “Random circular permutation of genes and expressed polypeptide chains: Application of the method to the catalytic chains of aspartate transcarbamoylase,” PNAS, 93:11591-11596 (1996).
- Gram et al., “In Vitro Selection and Affinity Maturation of Antibodies From a Naive Combinatorial Immunoglobulin Library”, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 89:3576-3580 (1992).
- Greener et al., “An Efficient Random Mutagenesis Technique Using An E. coli Mutator Strain”, Methods in Molecular Biology, 57:375-385 (1995).
- Harlow et al., “Construction of Linker-Scanning Mutations using the Polymerase Chain Reaction,” Methods in Mol. Biol., 31:87-96 (1994).
- Heda et al., “A simple in vitro site directed mutagenesis of concatamerized cDNA by inverse polymerase chain reaction,” Nuc. Acids Res., 20(19):5241-5242 (1992).
- Heim et al., “Wavelength Mutations And Posttranslational Autoxidation Of Green Fluorescent Protein”, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 91(26):12501-12504 (1994).
- Hermes et al., “Searching Sequence Space by Definably Random Mutagenesis: Improving the Catalytic Potency of an Enzyme,” Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 87(2):696-700 (1990).
- Higuchi et al., “A general method of in vitro preparation and specific mutagenesis of DNA fragments: study of protein and DNA interactions,” Nuc. Acids Res., 16(15):7351-7367 (1988).
- Ho et al., “DNA and Protein Engineering Using the Polymerase Chain Reaction: Splicing by Overlap Extension,” DNA and Protein Eng. Techniques, 2(2):50-55 (1990).
- Ho et al., “Site-Directed Mutagenesis by Overlap Extension Using the Polymerase Chain Reaction,” Gene, 77:51-59 (1989).
- Hodgson, “The Whys and Wherefores of DNA Amplification,” Biotechnology, 11:940-942 (Aug. 1993).
- Horton et al., “Gene Splicing by Overlap Extension,” Mehtods in Enzymology, 217:270-279 (1993).
- Horton et al., “Gene Splicing by Overlap Extension: Tailor-Made Genes Using the Polymerase chain Reaction,” BioTechniques, 8(5):528-535 (May 1990).
- Horton et al., “Engineering Hybrid Genes Without the Use of Restriction Enzymes: Gene Splicing by Overlap Extension,” Gene, 77:61-68 (1989).
- Ippolito et al., “Structure assisted redesign of a protein-zinc-binding site with femtomolar affinity”, PNAS, 92: 5017-5021 (May 1995).
- Janczewski et al., “Molecular phylogenetic inference from saber-toothed cat fossils of Rancho La Brea,” PNAS, 89:9769-9773 (1992).
- Jayaraman et al., “Polymerase chain reaction-mediated gene synthesis: Synthesis of a gene coding for isozyme c of horseradish peroxidase,” PNAS, 88:4084-4088 (May 1991).
- Jones et al., “A Rapid Method for Recombination and Site-Specific Mutagenesis by Placing Homologous ends on DNA Using Polymerase Chain Reaction,” BioTechniques, 10(1): 62-66 (1991).
- Jones et al., “Recombinant Circle PCR and Recombination PCR for Site-Specific Mutagenesis Without PCR Product Purification,” Biotechniques 12(4):528-534 (1992).
- Joyce, G. F., “Directed Molecular Evolution,” Scientific American, (Dec. 1992).
- Kang et al., “Antibody redesign by chain shuffling from random combinatorial immunoglobulin libraries,” PNAS, 88(24):11120-11123 (1991).
- Kellogg et al., “Plasmid-Assisted Molecular Breeding: New Technique for Enhanced Biodegradation of Persistent Toxic Chemicals”, Science, 214: 1133-1135 (Dec. 4, 1981).
- Kim et al., “Cloning and Nucleotide Sequence of the Collb Sufflon,” Plasmid, 22:180-184 (1989).
- Kim et al., “Human Immunodeficiency Virus Reverse Transcriptase,” The Journal of Biological Chemistry, 271(9):4872-4878 (1996).
- Klug et al., “Creating chimeric molecules by PCR directed homologous DNA recombination,” Nuc. Acids Res., 19(10):2793 (1991).
- Komano et al., “Physical and Genetic Analyses of Incl2 Plasmid R721: Evidence for the Presence of Shufflon,” Plasmid, 23:248-251 (1990).
- Komano et al., “Distribution of Shufflon among Incl Plasmids,” J. Bacteriology, 169(11):5317-5319 (1987).
- Kramer et al., “Oligonucleotide-directed construction of mutations via gapped duplex DNA,” Methods in Enzymology, 154:350-367 (1987).
- Krishnan et al., “Direct and crossover PCR amplification to facilitate Tn5supF-based sequencing of λ phage clones,” Nuc. Acids Res., 19(22):6177-6182 (1991).
- Kunkel et al., “Rapid and efficient site-specific mutagenesis without phenotypic selection,” Methods in Enzymology, 154:367-382 (1987).
- Kunkel, “Rapid and efficient site-specific mutagenesis without phenotypic selection”, PNAS, 82: 488-493 (Jan. 1985).
- Leung et al., “A Method For Random Mutagenesis of a Defined DNA Segment Using a Modified Polymerase Chain Reaction,” Techniques, 1:11-15 (1989).
- Levichkin et al., “A New Approach to Construction of Hybrid Genes: Homelog Recombination Method”, Mol. Biology, 29(5) part 1:572-577 (1995).
- Lewis et al., “Efficient site directed in vitro mutagenesis using ampicillin selection”, Nuc. Acids Res, 18(12): 3439-3443 (1990).
- Lorberboum-Calski et al., “Cytotoxic activity of an interleukin 2-Pseudomonas exotoxin chimeric protein produced in Escherichia coli,” PNAS, 85:1922-1926 (1988).
- Lowman, H.B. et al, “Affinity Maturation of Human Growth Hormone by Monovalent Phage Display,” J. Mol. Biol., 234:564-578 (1993).
- Majumder, K., “Ligation-free gene synthesis by PCR: synthesis and mutagenesis at multiple loci of a chimeric gene encoding OmpA signal peptide and hirudin,” Gene, 110:89-94 (1992).
- Marks et al., “By-passing Immunization, Human Antibodies from V-gene Libraries Displayed on Phage,” J. Mol. Biol., 222:581-597 (1991).
- Marks et al., “By-Passing Immunization: Building High Affinity Human Antibodies by Chain Shuffling,” Bio/Technology, 10:779-783 (1992).
- Marton et al., “DNA Nicking Favors PCR Recombination”, Nucleic Acids Res., 19(9):2423-2426 (1991).
- Maryon et al., “Characterization of recombination intermediates from DNA injected into Xenopus laevis oocytes: evidence for a nonconservative mechnism of homologous recombination,” Mol. Cell Biol., 11(6):3278-3287 (1991).
- McCafferty et al., “Phage antibodies: filamentous phage displaying antibody variable domains,” Nature, 348:552-554 (Dec. 6, 1990).
- Meyerhans et al., “DNA Recombination During PCR,” Nucleic Acids Research, 18(7):1687-1691 (1990).
- Michael, S.F., “Thermostable Ligase-Mediated Incorporation of Mutagenic Oligonucleotides During PCR Amplification,” chapter 19 from Methods in Molecular Biology, PCR Cloning Protocols from Molecular Cloning to Genetic Engineering, eds. B. White, Humana Press, totowa, New Jersey, pp. 189-195 (1997).
- Moore et al., “Directed evolution of a para-nitrobenzyl esterase for aqueous-organic solvents”, Nature Biotech., 14: 458-467 (Apr. 1996).
- Morl et al., “Group II intron RNA-catalyzed recombination of RNA in vitro,” Nuc. Acids Res., 18(22):6645-6551 (1990).
- Mullis et al., “Specific Synthesis of DNA in Vitro via a Polymerase-Catalyzed Chain Reaction,” Methods in Enzymology, 155:335-351 (1987).
- Mullis et al., “Specific Enzymatic Amplification of DNA In Vitro: The Polymerase Chain Reaction,” Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology, 51:263-273 (1986).
- Near, “Gene Conversion Of Immunoglobulin Variable Regions In Mutagenesis Cassettes By Replacement PCR Mutagenesis”, Biotechniques, 12(1):88-97 (1992).
- Ner et al., “Laboratory Methods: A Simple and Efficient Procedure for Generating Random Point Mutations and for Codon Replacements Using Mixed Oligodeoxynucleotides,” DNA, 7(2):127-134 (1988).
- Nissim et al., “Antibody fragments from a ‘single pot’ display library as immunochemical reagents,” EMBO Journal, 13(3):692-698 (1994).
- Oliphant et al., “Cloning of Random-Sequence Oligodeoxynucleotides,” Gene, 44(2-3):177-183 (1986).
- Olsen et al., “Hybrid Bacillus (1-3,1-4)-beta-glucanases: engineering thermostable enzymes by construction of hybrid genes,” Mol. Gen. Genet., 225(2):177-185 (1991).
- Omura, “Philosophy of New Drug Discovery”, Microbiol. Rev., 50(3):259-279 (Sep. 1986).
- Osuna et al., “Combinatorial mutagenesis of three major groove-contacting residues of Eco RI: single and double amino acid replacements retaining methyltransferase-sensitive activities,” Gene, 106:7-12 (1991).
- Paabo et al., “DNA Damage Promotes Jumping between Templates during Enzymatic Amplification,” J. Biol. Chem., 265(8):4718-4721 (Mar. 15, 1990).
- Perlak, “Single Step Large Scale Site-Directed In Vitro Mutagenesis Using Multiple Oligonucleotides”, Nucleic Acids Res., 18(24):7457-7458 (1990).
- Pharmacia Catalog, pp. 70-71 (1993 Edition).
- Piepersberg, “Pathway Engineering in Secondary Metabolite-Producing Actinomycetes”, Crit. Rev. Biotech., 14(3):251-285 (1994).
- Pompon et al., “Protein Engineering by cDNA Recombination in Yeasts: Shuffling of Mammalian Cytochrome P-450 Functions,” Gene, 83(1):15-24 (1989).
- Prasher, “Using GFP to see the light”, TIG, 11(8) (Aug. 1995).
- Prodromou et al., “PROTOCOL, Recursive PCR: a novel technique for total gene synthesis,” Protein Engineering, 5(8):827-829 (1992).
- Rao et al., “Recombination and Polymerase Error Facilitate Restoration of Infectivity in Brome Mosaic Virus,” Journal of Virology, 67(2):969-979 (1993).
- Rapley, “Enhancing PCR Amplification And Sequencing Using DNA-Binding Proteins”, Mol. Biotechnol., 2(3):295-298 (1994).
- Reidhaar-Olson et al., “Combinatorial Cassette Mutagenesis as a Probe of the Informational Content of Protein Sequences,” Science, 241:53-57 (1988).
- Rice et al., “Random PCR mutagenesis screening of secreted proteins by direct expression in mammalian cells”, PNAS, 5467-5471 (Jun. 1992).
- Robles et al., “Hydropathy and Molar Volume Constraints on Combinatorial mutants of the Photosynthetic Reaction Center,” J. Mol. Biol., 232:242-252 (1993).
- Rouwendal et al., “Simultaneous Mutagenesis of Multiple Sites: Application of the Ligase Chain Reaction Using PCR Products Instead of Oligonucleotides,” BoiTechniques, 15(1):68-70, 72-74, 76 (1993).
- Saiki et al., “Diagnosis of sickle Cell Anemia and β-Thalassemia with Enzymatically Amplified DNA and Nonradioactive Allele-Specific Oligonucleotide Probes,” New England J. of Medicine, 319(9):537-541 (Sep. 1, 1988).
- Saiki et al., “analysis of enzymatically amplified β-globin and HLA-DQα DNA with allele-specific oligonucleotide probes,” Nature, 324:163-166 (Nov. 13, 1986).
- Saiki et al., “Enzymatic Amplification of β-Globin Genomic Sequences and Restriction Site analysis for Diagnosis of Sickle Cell Anemia,” Science, 230:1350-1354 (Dec. 20, 1985).
- Saiki et al., “Primer-Directed Enzymatic Amplification of DNA with a Thermostabl;e DNA Polymerase,” Science, 239:487-491 (Jan. 20, 1988).
- Sambrook et al., Molecular Cloning. A Laboratory Manual, Cold Spring Laboratory Press, Cold Spring Harbor, New York (1989).
- Sambrook et al., Molecular Cloning: A Laboratory Manual, 2nd edition, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, pp. 14.2, 14.34, and 14.35 (1989).
- Sandhu et al., “Dual Asymmetric PCR: One-Step Construction of Synthetic Genes,” BioTechniques, 12(1):14-16 (1992).
- Scharf et al., “Direct Cloning and Sequence Analysis of Enzymatically Amplified Genomic Sequences,” Science, 233:1076-1078 (Sep. 1986).
- Scott et al., “Searching for Peptide Ligands with an Epitope Library,” Science, 249:386-390 (Jul. 20, 1990).
- Shao et al., “Random-priming in vitro recombination: an effective tool for directed evolution,” Nuc. Acids Res., 26(2):681-683 (1998).
- Shi et al., “Rapid PCR Construction of a Gene Containing Lym-1 Antibody Variable Regions,” PCR Methods and Applications, 3:46-53 (1993).
- Shuldiner et al., “Hybrid DNA artifact from PCR of closely related target sequences,” Nuc. Acids Res., 17(11):4409 (1989).
- Sikorski et al., “In Vitro Mutagenesis and Planned Shuffling: From Cloned Gene to Mutant Yeast,” Methods in Enzymology, 194:302-318 (1991).
- Simpson et al., “Two paradigms of metabolic engineering applied to amino acid biosynthesis”, Biochem. Soc. Transactions, vol. 23 (1995).
- Smith et al., “Unwanted Mutations in PCR Mutagenesis: Avoiding the Predictable,” PCR Methods and Applications, 2(3):253-257 (Feb. 1993).
- Smith et al., “Localized sex in bacteria,” Nature, 349:29-31 (1991).
- Steele et al., “Techniques for Selection of Industrially Important Microorganisms”, Ann. Rev. Microbiol., 45:89-106 (1991).
- Stemmer, “Rapid Evolution of a Protein in Vitro by DNA Shuffling,” Nature, 370:389-391 (1994).
- Stemmer, “DNA Shuffling by Random Fragmentation and Reassembly: In Vitro Recombination for Molecular Evolution” Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 91(22):10747-10751 (1994).
- Stemmer et al., “Selection of an Active Single Chain FV Antibody from a Protein Linker Library Prepared by Enzymatic Inverse PCR,” Biotechniques, 14(2):256-265 (1992).
- Stemmer, “Searching Sequence Space”, Biotechnology, 13:549-553 (1995).
- Stemmer et al., “Single-Step Assembly Of A Gene And Entire Plasmid From Large Numbers Of Oligodeoxyribonucletides”, Gene, 164(1):49-53 (1995).
- Stemmer, “The Evolution of Molecular Computation”, Science, 270(5241):1510 (1995).
- Stemmer, “Sexual PCR and Assembly PCR” Encyclopedia Mol. Biol., VCH Publishers, New York, pp. 447-457 (1996).
- Stemmer et al., “Increased Antibody Expression from Escherichia-coli Through Wobble-Base Library Muatagenesis by Enzymatic Inverse PCR,” Gene, 123(1):1-7 (1993).
- Stemmer et al., “Enzymatic Inverse PCR—A Restriction Site Independent, single-Fragment Method for High-Efficiency, Site-Directed Mutagenesis,” Biotechniques, 13(2):214 (1992).
- Stemmer et al., “Expression of Antibody FV Fragments Specific for a Heavy Metal Chelate Indium Edta In Escherichia-coli,” J. Cell Biochem., Suppl. 0(15 part G), p. 217 (1991).
- Stemmer et al., “A 20-Minute Ethidium Bromide High-slat Extraction Protocol for Plasmid DNA,” Biotechniques, 10(6):726 (1991).
- Stephanopoulos et al., “Metabolic engineering—methodologies and future prospects”, Trends Biotech. 11:392-396 (1993).
- Stephanopoulos, “Metabolic engineering”, Curr. Opin. Biotech., 5: 196:200 (1994).
- Villarreal et al., “A General Method of Polymerase-Chain-Reaction-Enabled Protein Domain Mutagenesis: Construction of a Human Protein S-Osteonectin Gene,” Analytical Biochem., 197:362-367 (1991).
- Wang et al., “Identification Of Glial Filament Protein And Vimentin In The Same Intermediate Filament System In Human Glioma Cells”, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 81(7):2102-2106 (1984).
- Weber et al., “Formation of Genes Coding for Hybrid Proteins by Recombination Between Related, Cloned Genes in E. coli,” Nucleic Acids Research, 11(16):5661-5669 (1983).
- Wehmeier, “New multifunctional Escherichia coli-Streptomyces shuttle vectors allowing blue-white screening on XGal plates”, Gene, 165:149-150 (1995).
- Weissenhorn et al., “Chimerization of antibodies by isolation of rearranged genomic variable regions by the polymerase chain reaction,” Gene, 106:273-277 (1991).
- Winter et al., “Making Antibodies By Phage Display Technology”, Ann. Rev. Immunol., 12:433-455 (1994).
- Wu et al., “Allele-specific enzymatic amplification of beta-globin fgenomic for diagnosis of sickle cell anemia,” PNAS, 86(6):2757-2760 (1989).
- Yao et al., “Site-directed Mutagenesis of Herpesvirus Glycoprotein Phosphorylation Sites by Recombination Polymerase Chain Reaction,” PCR Methods and Applications, 1(3):205-207 (Feb. 1992).
- Yolov et al., “Constructing DNA by polymerase recombination,” Nuc. Acids Res., 18(13):3983-3986 (1990).
- Yon et al., “Precise gene fusion by PCR,” Nuc. Acids Res., 17(12):4895 (1989).
- Youvan et al., “Recursive Ensemble Mutagenesis: A Combinatorial Optimization Technique for Protein Engineering,” from Parallel Problem Solving from Nature, 2, Manner eds., pp. 401-410 (1992).
- Zhang et al., “Directed Evolution Of A Fucosidase From A Galactosidase By DNA Shuffling And Screening”, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 94(9):4504-4509 (1997).
- Zhao et al., “Molecular Evolution by Staggered Extension Process (StEP) In Vitro Recombination”, Nature Biotech., 16:258-261 (1998).
- Zoller et al., “Oligonucleotide-directed mutagenesis: a simple method using two oligonucleotide primers and a single-stranded DNA template,” Methods in Enzymology, 154:329-350 (1987).
- Zoller, M.J., “New recombinant DNA methodology for protein engineering,” Curr. Opin. Biotech., 3:348-354 (1992).
- Biotransformations, Pathogenesis, and Evolving Biotechnology, Program and Abstracts, Pseudomonas '89, American Society for Microbiology and The University of Illinois, 7/9-13/89, abstracts 11-21 to 11-25.
- Statutory Declaration of Mae Li Gan in Australian Opposition against application 703264.
- Statutory Declaration of Dr. Gerald Joyce in Australian Opposition against application 703264.
- Statutory Declaration of Ngarie Petit-Young in Australian Opposition against application 703264.
- Statutory Declaration of Ruth Bird in Australian Opposition against application 703264.
- Request for leave to amend the Statement of Grounds and Particulars re: opposition 703264 in Australia (Jan. 25, 2001).
- Amended Statement of Particulars re: opposition 703264 in Australia (Jan. 25, 2001).
- Opposition Statement in matter of Australian Patent Application 703264 (Affymax Technologies NV), filed by Diversa Corporation on Sep. 23, 1999.
- Abastado et al., “Processing of complex heteroduplexes in Escherichia coli and Cos-1 monkey cells,” PNAS, 81(18):5792-5796 (1984).
- Dohet et al., “Methyl-directed repair of frameshift mutations in heteroduplex DNA,” PNAS, 83(10):3395-3397 (1986).
- Zarucki-Schulz et al., “Point Mutagenesis of the Ovalbumin Gene Promoter Sequence and Its Effect on in Vitro Transcription,” J. Biol. Chem., 257(18):11070-11077 (1982).
- Chang et al., “Recombination following transformation of Escherichia coli by heteroduplex plasmid DNA molecules,” Gene, 29:255-261 (1984).
- Claverys et al., “Heteroduplex Deoxyribonucleic Acid Base Mismatch Repair in Bacteria,” Microbiological Reviews, 50(2):133-165 (1986).
- Fang et al., “Human Strand-specific Mismatch Repair Occurs by a Bidirectional Mechanism Similar to That of the Bacterial Reaction,” J. Biological Chemistry, 268(16):11838-11844 (1993).
- Fang et al., “Methyl-directed Repair of Mismatched Small Heterologous Sequences in Cell Extracts from Escherichia coli,” J. Biological Chemistry, 272(36):22714-22720 (1997).
- Folger et al., “Efficient Correction of Mismatched Bases in Plasmid Heteroduplexes Injected into Cultured Mammalian Cell Nuclei,” Molecular and Cellular Biology, 5(1):70-74 (1985).
- Lahue et al., “DNA Mismatch Correction in a Defined System,” Science, 245:160-164 (1989).
- Strickberger, M. W., cover page, preface, table of contents, and pp. 844-846 fromGenetics. Second Edition, MacMillan Publishing Co., Inc.
- Umar et al., “DNA Loop Repair by Human Cell Extracts,” Science, 266:814-816 (1994).
- Vassylyev et al., “DNA-repair enzymes,” Current Opinion in Structural Biology, 7:103-109 (1997).
- Volkov et al., “Recombination and chimeragenesis by in vitro heteroduplex formation and in vitro repair,” Nuc. Acids Research, 27(18):i-vi (1999).
- Volkov et al., “Random Chimeragenesis by heteroduplex recombination,” Methods in Enzymology, 328:456-463 (2000).
- Blattman, A., Letter of Feb. 27, 2002 to Commissioner for Patents re: Australian Application 16241/99.
- Certified Copy of U.S. Appl. No. 60/067,908 filed Dec. 8, 1997.
- Declaration of Gerald F. Joyce in Opposition to Australian Patent Application 746786 (Aug. 4, 2004).
- List of Publications authored by Gerald F. Joyce.
- Sambrook et al., Molecular Cloning A Laboratory Manual, 2nd Edition, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, table of contents and pp. 5.15-5.27, 15.1-15.113, 16.1-16.81, and 17.1-17.44 (1989).
Type: Grant
Filed: Feb 19, 2003
Date of Patent: Jan 23, 2007
Patent Publication Number: 20040180340
Assignee: California Institute of Technology (Pasadena, CA)
Inventors: Frances Arnold (Pasadena, CA), Zhixin Shao (Penzberg, DE), Alexander Volkov (South Pasadena, CA)
Primary Examiner: Ethan Whisenant
Attorney: Townsend and Townsend and Crew, LLP
Application Number: 10/371,168
International Classification: C12N 15/00 (20060101); C12Q 1/68 (20060101); C07H 21/02 (20060101); C07H 21/04 (20060101);